tc- 


LECTURES  ON  TEACHING 


DELIVERED  IN  THE 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAMBRIDGE 


DURING  THE  LENT  TERM,  1880, 


BY 


J.  G.  ^ITOH,  M.A. 

ASSISTANT    Cf      VIISSIONER    TO    THE    LATE   ENDOWED    SCHOOLS 

CO.  MISSION,  AND  ONE  OF  HER  MAJESTY'S 

INSPECTORS  OF  SCHOOLS. 


NEW    EDITION. 
WITH  A  PREFACE   BY 

AN  AMERICAN  NORMAL  TEACHER 


NEW  YORK : 
MACMILLAN    &    CO., 

1885. 


SANTA    BARBARA.    CALIF. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION. 


ALTHOUGH  eminent  writers  in  both  hemispheres  have  pro- 
duced works  on  teaching  of  superior  merit,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  literature  of  pedagogy  is  still  in  its  infancy. 
There  is  no  standard  authority,  as  in  law  or  medicine,  to 
which  all  teachers  can  refer  and  on  which  they  can  rely.  Her- 
bert Spencer  and  Alexander  Bain  have  written  excellent  books 
on  the  theory  of  teaching;  but  they  have  said  little  or  nothing 
on  the  practice  of  teaching — hardly  one  word  that  would  aid 
the  young  beginner  in  organizing  and  managing  a  school. 
Many  able  instructors  in  the  United  States,  among  whom  may 
be  mentioned  Wickersham  and  Payne,  have  done  good  service 
in  the  cause  of  education  by  writing  works  of  great  value, — 
works  more  practical  than  any  produced  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic  except  the  work  entitled  Lectures  on  Teaching  by 
J.  G.  Fitch. 

Teachers  everywhere  among  the  English-speaking  people 
have  hailed  Mr.  Fitch's  work  as  an  invaluable  aid  for  almost 
every  kind  of  instruction  and  school  organization.  It  com- 
bines the  theoretical  and  the  practical;  it  is  based  on  psychol- 
ogy; it  gives  admirable  advice  on  everything  connected  with 
teaching,  from  the  furnishing  of  a  school-room  to  the  prepara 


iv  Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

tion  of  questions  for  examination.  Its  style  is  singularly  clear, 
vigorous,  and  harmonious;  so  that  notwithstanding  the  dryness 
of  the  subject,  even  the  layman  can  read  it  with  pleasure  and 
profit.  Some  one  has  said  that  it  requires  as  much  ability  to 
govern  and  instruct  a  district  school  with  justice  and  wisdom 
as  it  does  to  govern  a  State;  and  this  thought  must  have  been 
in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Fitch  when  preparing  his  great  work  on 
teaching.  His  ideal  schoolmaster  must  be  a  man  of  rare  quali- 
fications, mental,  moral,  and  physical;  he  must  be  the  equal  of 
any  governor  in  the  world.  Mr.  Fitch  in  his  requirements  for 
good  teaching  honors  the  profession.  He  does  not  treat  it  as  a 
piece  of  job-work  to  which  any  half -educated  person  may  turn 
his  hand,  but  as  a  professional  calling,  which,  according  to 
Edward  Everett,  requires  learning,  skill,  and  experience. 

Mr.  Fitch  has  avoided  the  mistake  made  by  many  writers  on 
education  who  have  devoted  their  attention  to  a  special  depart- 
ment. He  has  neglected  nothing.  From  the  Kindergarten  to 
the  higher  branches  taught  in  the  common-school,  he  has 
touched  upon  every  department  of  instruction,  manifesting  a 
thoroughness  and  comprehensiveness  of  grasp  indicative  of 
careful  thought  and  wide  experience.  Teachers  and  parents,  as 
well  as  those  just  beginning  to  teach,  would  find  it  exceed- 
ingly profitable  to  make  Fitch's  Lectures  on  Teaching  a  sub- 
ject for  close  and  repeated  study. 

June,  1886. 


PREFACE. 

IN  1879  the  Senate  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  in  com- 
pliance with  numerous  memorials  from  Head-masters  and 
others,  determined  to  take  measures  with  a  view  to  encourage 
among  those  who  intended  to  adopt  the  profession  of  teaching, 
the  study  of  the  principles  and  practice  of  their  art.  In  further- 
ance of  this  design  a  "  Teachers'  Training  Syndicate"  was 
appointed,  and  that  body  shortly  afterwards  put  forth  a  scheme 
of  examination  in  the  history,  the  theory  and  the  practice  of 
Education.  The  first  examination  under  this  scheme  was  held 
in  June  1880.  The  Syndicate  also  resolved  to  provide  that 
courses  of  lectures  should  be  given  during  the  academical  year 
1879-80.  The  introductory  course  on  the  History  of  Educa- 
tion, and  the  life  and  work  of  eminent  teachers,  was  delivered 
by  the  Rev.  R.  H.  Quick  in  Michaelmas  Term.  In  the  follow- 
ing Easter  Term,  Mr.  James  Ward,  Fellow  of  Trinity  College, 
lectured  on  Mental  Science  in  its  special  relation  to  teaching; 
and  the  second  course,  which  fell  to  my  own  share,  was  de- 
livered in  the  Lent  Term,  and  related  mainly  to  the  practical 
aspects  of  the  schoolmaster's  work. 

It  has  been  considered  by  some  of  those  most  interested  in 
this  experiment  that  this,  the  first  course  of  lectures  on  the  Art 
of  Teaching  specially  addressed  to  the  members  of  an  English 
University,  might  properly  be  placed  within  reach  of  a  some- 
what wider  circle  of  students.  In  carrying  out  this  suggestion, 
I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  abandon  the  free  and  familiar 


CONTENTS. 


THE  TEACHER  AND  HIS  ASSISTANTS.  PAGE 

Introduction         .          .  .  .  .          .          .          .15 

Relation  of  the  University  to  the  teaching  profession      .  .    17 

Teaching  not  to  be  stereotyped          .  .  .  .  .19 

Teaching  both  an  Art  and  a  Science  .  .  .  .  .21 

Qualifications  of  the  Ideal  Teacher    .  .          .  .          .23 

Knowledge  of  the  thing  to  be  taught  .  .          .  .23 

Preparation          ....  _.    84 

Extra-professional  Knowledge  .          .          .          .          .25 

Temper       .........    27 

Activity  and  Cheerfulness        .  .  .          .          .  .29 

Avoidance  of  Pedantry  .  .  .  .          .          .  .31 

Power  of  describing  and  narrating    .  .          .          .          .33 

Freshness  of  mind          .  .  .  .          .          .  .34 

Sympathy 35 

The  work  of  Assistants  .          .  .  .          .  .          .37 

Limits  to  their  responsibility   .  .          .          .  .  .39 

School  Councils    ........    39 

Student-teachers  .  .          .          .          .  .          .42 

The  Teacher's  aims        .  ....    43 


Q.    THE  SCHOOL,  ITS  AIMS  AND  ORGANIZATION. 

Limits  to  School-work    .           .           .  .  .  .  .46 

Five  departments  of  School-instruction  .  .  .  .47 

Their  relative  importance        .           .  .  .    47 

Primary,  Secondary,  and  High  Schools  .  .    60 

The  studies  appropriate  for  each       .  ...    52 

What  is  a  liberal  education?    .          .  .  .  .  .58 

The  grading  of  Schools  .           .           .  .  .  .  .54 

Day  and  boarding  Schools        .          .  •  .  •  •    55 


Contents.  vii 


PAGE 

True  relation  of  the  School  to  the  Home      .           .          .  .56 

Bifurcation  and  modern  departments          .           .          .  .59 

Girls'  Schools .61 

Distribution  of  time       .          .          .          .          .          .  .63 

Classification        ........    65 

Entrance  Examination  .           .          .          .          .          .  .66 

Fees                      ......  .67 


[II.    THE  SCHOOL-ROOM  AND  ITS  APPLIANCES. 

The  physical  conditions  of  successful  teaching    .          .          .69 
Space  and  light  ........      71 

Desks 71 

Ventilation  and  Warmth         .  .          .          .          .          .73 

Furniture  and  Apparatus       .          .  .          .          .75 

Comeliness  of  a  School  ......      77 

Registration  and  School  book-keeping       .          .          .          .77 

Tabulated  Reports  of  progress         .          .  .  .          .78 

Note-books  for  Teachers  and  Scholars       .          .  .  .80 

Text-books          ........      84 

Tests  of  a  good  School-book  ......     85 

School  libraries  ........      87 

School  museums  .  .   '       .          .  .  .          .89 

Costly  apparatus  not  always  the  best        .          .          .          .91 


IV.    DISCIPLINE. 

The  Teacher  as  a  ruler  and  administrator  .          .  .92 

Commands  to  be  well  considered  before  they  are  given          .      94 
Over-governing  ........      95 

Right  and  wrong  uses  of  mechanical  drill  .          .  .96 

Corporate  life  of  a  School       .          .          .          .          .          .98 

Child-nature  to  be  studied  before  insisting  on  rules       .          .      99 
School-time  to  be  filled  with  work    .  .          .          .          .100 

The  law  of  Habit          .          .          .          .  .          .  .101 

Its  bearing  on  School  life  and  work  ....    103 

Recreation  and  gymnastics    .  .          .  .  .    104 

Sunday  discipline  in  boarding  schools        .          .          .    •          106 
Rewards:  how  to  use  and  to  economize  them      .          .          .    106 
Happiness  of  children  .......    109 

Punishments  and  their  purpose        .....    110 

Principles  to  be  kept  in  view  .....    Ill 

The  sense  of  shame      ,          ,         ,          ,         ,         ,         .119 


viii  Contents. 


PAGE 

Tasks  as  punishments  .......    113 

The  discipline  of  consequences         .....    115 

Why  inadequate  for  the  purposes  of  the  State    .          .          .116 
And  inadequate  for  School  purposes          .          .  .  .117 

The  best  kinds  of  punishment          .          .          .          .  .118 

Corporal  punishment   .......    119 

How  to  dispense  with  punishments .          .          .          .          .120 


V.    LEARNING  AND  REMEMBERING. 

The  law  of  mental  suggestion  .          .  .  .          .121 

Different  forms  of  association          .....    123 

The  process  of  remembering  .....    124 

Mode  of  establishing  permanent  associations       .  .  .    125 

(1)  Frequent  Repetition,  (2)  Interest  in  the  thing  learned         .    126 
Verbal  and  rational  memory  .....    127 

Learning  by  heart  when  legitimate  .  .          .  .128 

How  to  commit  to  memory    ......    131 

Memory  to  be  supplemented  by  reflection  .          .          .    132 

And  strengthened  by  exercise          .....    133 

Tests  of  a  good  memoriter  lesson     .  .  .          .  .133 

Printed  catechisms       .......    135 

Relations  of  memory  to  intelligence          ....    137 

The  uses  of  forgotten  knowledge      .....    139 

Oral  instruction— its  advantages  and  its  dangers  .  .    141 

Self-tuition .    142 

Book-work,  its  advantages  and  shortcomings       .  .  .143 

Home  and  written  exercises  ......    145 

Conditions  to  be  fulfilled  by  them    .          .          .          .          .146 

Illustrative  examples   .          .          .          .          .          .          .148 


VI.    EXAMINING. 

Purposes  to  be  served  by  questioning         .  .  .  .151 

A  Socratic  dialogue       .......    153 

The  Socratic  method  in  its  application  to  Schools          .          .    155 
Characteristics  of  good  oral  questioning    ....    156 

Clearness,  Terseness,  Point    ......    157 

Simplicity,  Directness,  Continuity    .....    159 

Different  forms  of  answer      ......    160 

Collective  answering  deceptive         .....    168 

Mutual  questioning       .......    163 

The  inquisitive  spirit    .          .  .          .          .          .  .163 


Contents.  ix 


PAGE 

Books  of  questions        .......    165 

Written  examinations,  their  use  and  abuse          .  .  .166 

Dishonest  preparation  .          .          .          .          .          .  .167 

Legitimate  preparation  ......    169 

How  to  frame  a  good  Examination  paper  .  .          .    175 

And  to  estimate  the  answers  ......    176 

Venial  and  punishable  blunders       .  .          .          .          .178 

The  morality  of  Examinations          .....    179 


VII.    PREPARATORY  TRAINING. 

The  training  of  the  Senses      .          .          .          .          .  .181 

Principles  to  be  kept  in  view  in  Infant  discipline  .  .    182 

The  Kindergarten          .          .          .          .          .          .  .184 

Its  merits ,185 

Limits  to  its  usefulness  ....  .186 

The  art  of  Reading       .......    189 

Anomalies  of  the  English  Alphabet .          .          .          .  .189 

Proposals  to  reform  it  .  .          .          .          .          .  ,    190 

Modes  of  teaching  Reading  j  193 

Reading  books    ...,..,.    196 

Spelling 197 

Dictation  and  Transcription   ...          .          .          .    199 

Words  to  be  used  as  well  as  spelled  ....    201 

Thoughtful  and  effective  reading     .          .          .  .          .202 

Oral  expression  ........    204 

Writing  and  mode  of  teaching  it  .          .          ,  .205 

Locke's  directions  .          .          ,          .          .          .208 


VIII.    THE  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGE. 

Language  long  the  staple  of  school  instruction   .  .          .210 

Reasons  for  this  .  . 210 

Greek  and  Latin  .......    213 

Purposes  once  served  by  the  learning  of  Latin    .  .  .    214 

Some  of  these  no  longer  useful         .....    215 

"  Classical  "  Schools     .......    217 

The  true  place  of  Latin  in  the  schools  of  the  future      .  .    218 

In  High  Schools,  and  in  Secondary  Schools          .          .  .219 

Comparison  of  Latin  with  English  forms  .  .  .  .220 

How  much  Grammar  should  be  learned  by  heart          .  .    221 

Exercises  in  translation  from  the  first       ....    222 

Literature  to  be  studied  early  .....    226 


Contents. 


PAGE 

The  place  of  Latin  in  a  primary  school       .  .          .228 

Etymology— Prefixes  and  Affixes     .          .    <      .  .  .280 

Modern  foreign  languages      ......    281 

Purposes  and  methods  of  teaching  them    .          .          .          .282 

Audition   .........    238 

The  choice  of  foreign  teachers         .          .          .          .          .286 


[X.    THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

The  relation  of  English  to  other  linguistic  studies          .          .    237 
Grammar  as  an  Art,  not  to  be  acquired  by  technical  rules       .    238 
Grammar  as  a  Science  ......    240 

A  vernacular  language  to  be  studied  analytically          .          .    241 
Classification  of  English  words         .  .  .  .          .242 

Logical  and  Grammatical  Analysis  .....    246 

Example  of  Analysis    .  .  .          .          .  .  .247 

Verbal  Analysis  ........    251 

Composition        ........    252 

Paraphrase;  examples  .*....    253 

Precis-writing     .........    256 

Versification       ........    257 

The  study  of  English  Literature       .  .          .          .  .258 

Principles  and  Methods  to  be  kept  in  view  .          .  .259 

Critical  analysis  not  destructive  of  literary  enjoyment  .    260 

The  history  of  literature         ....  .261 


X.    ARITHMETIC  AS  AN  ART. 

Why  Arithmetic  should  be  taught    .....    263 

It  is  both  an  Art  and  a  Science         .          .          .          .  .    263 

Robert  Recorde's  Arithmetick          .....    265 

The  place  of  Arithmetic  among  school  studies    .  .          .267 

Its  practical  uses          .......    269 

Skill  in  Computation,  how  to  obtain  it  .          .  .    270 

The  discipline  of  an  Arithmetic  class          .          .          .  .271 

Exercises  in  words  as  well  as  in  figures      .          .          .          .272 

Answers  to  be  kept  out  of  sight        .....    272 

Oral  or  Mental  Arithmetic      .          .          .          .          .  .274 

Its  uses  and  abuses       .......    275 

Examples  of  its  legitimate  use          .          .          .          .          .276 

Exercises  in  weighing  and  measuring         ....    279 

Rapidity  and  exactness          .  .          .          .          .  .    28J 

Exercises  in  ingenuity  and  invention         .          ,          .          .282 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Practical  applications  of  Arithmetic          .  .  .  .284 

Decimalizing  English  money  ....  .285 

Visible  relation  to  business  no  test  of  real  utility  .  .    286 

Practical  Geometry       .          .          .          .          .  .  .286 


XI.    ARITHMETIC  AS  A  SCIENCE. 

Its  disciplinal  value      .......    288 

Inductive  and  deductive  methods  of  reasoning    .  .  .289 

Arithmetic  a  training  in  deductive  logic    ....    291 

Our  artificial  notation  .          .•         .          .          .  .  .293 

Methods  of  elucidating  it        ......    294 

Other  Scales  o£  Notation        .     --  .          .          .          .  .296 

The  Systeme  Metrique  ...  ...    297 

Methods  of  demonstrating  simple  rules — Subtraction    .  .    298 

Arithmetrical  parsing  .  .  .  .  .  .  .301 

The  teaching  of  Fractions       ......    302 

Illustration  of  demonstrative  exercises      ....    303 

The  use  of  formulae      .......    304 

Proportion  .  .          .  .          .  .          .  .    306 

Extraction  of  Roots      .  .  .          .          .          .          .306 

Synthesis  before  Analysis       ......    307 

Analogous  truths  in  Arithmetic  and  Geometry    .  .  .    310 

True  purpose  of  mathematical  teaching    ....    311 


XII.  GEOGRAPHY  AND  THE  LEARNING  OF  FACTS. 

Objects  to  be  kept  in  view  in  teaching  geography  .  .    313 

Its  use  (1)  as  information,  (2)  as  mental  discipline  .  .    314 

Home  Geography          .          .           .          .          .  .  .    315 

Lessons  on  earth  and  water   .           .          .          .  .  .316 

Order  of  teaching  geographical  facts         .          .  .  .317 

No  necessary  sequence  of  difficulty  or  importance  .  .    318 

The  use  of  a  globe         .           .          .          .          .  .  .320 

Measurement  of  approximate  distances     ....    320 

Physical  Geography     .           .          «          .          .  .  .    321 

Its  influence  on  national  character  and  history    .  .  .    322 

Maps         .          .          .          .           .          .          .  .  .    825 

Verbal  description  of  phenomena    .           .          .  .  .    826 

Fact-lore »  .    328 

Object-lessons    ...          .                     .          .  .  .329 

Their  use  and  their  abuse  .    330 


xii  Contents. 


PAGE 

Lessons  on  general  information  .....  381 
Subjects  suited  for^such  lessons  .....  832 
A  basis  of  fact  needed  for  future  teaching  of  science  .  .  832 
Technical  terms ......  .883 


XIII.    HISTORY. 

Purpose  of  historical  teaching          .          .          .          .          .336 

Text-books,  and  their  legitimate  use          .          .          .          .837 

The  Bible  a  model  of  history  .  .          .          .          .  .388 

Great  epochs  to  be  studied  first        .....    340 

Chronology         ........    342 

Right  and  wrong  ways  of  teaching  it          ....    343 

Mnemonic  methods  of  learning  Chronology         .  .          .    344 

Biography  .  ^     .  .  .          .          .  .  .846 

Lessons  on  great  writers         ......    848 

Historical  readings       .......    349 

The  poetry  of  History  .  .  .          .  .          .  .350 

Picturesque  teaching  and  its  relation  to  detail     .  .  .    352 

Lessons  on  the  Government  and  Constitution      .  .  .    353 

The  training  for  citizenship    .          .          .  .  .          .354 


XIV.    NATURAL  SCIENCE. 

The  place  of  Physical  Science  among  school  studies     .          .    356 
Its  claims  to  rank  as  part  of  a  liberal  education  .  .  .358 

The  utilities  of  physical  truths         .  .  .          .  .360 

Their  beauty  ahd  intellectual  attractiveness        .          .  .    361 

The  disciplinal  value  of  the  inductive  process      .  .  .    362 

The  search  for  the  causes  of  phenomena   ....    364 

Reasons  and  explanations  not  discoverable,  but  only  facts     .    365 
Large  truths  instead  of  small  ones  .          .  .  .  .866 

What  are "  laws"  of  Nature?  .          .          .          .  .          .366 

Application  of  the  methods  of  inductive  investigation  to  the 

business  of  life        .......    367 

The  relation  of  science  to  skilled  industry  .          .  .369 

Technical  and  Trade  Schools  .....    370 

Subjects  of  physical  inquiry  suited  to  form  part  of  general 

education      .  .          .  .          .          .          .  .371 

Scientific  terminology  .......    874 

Lessons  on  common  things  not  necessarily  scientific     .  .    876 

General  not  special  training  .          .          .          .          .          .377 


Contents.  xiii 

XV.    THE  CORRELATION  OF  STUDIES.  PAGE 

Review  of  the  curriculum  of  school  studies          .          .  .    380 

Multum  non  multa       .......    381 

Distribution  of  time  not  necessarily  proportioned  to  the  im- 
portance of  subjects         ......    382 

The  contending  claims  of  numerous  subjects       .          .  .    382 

The  convertibility  of  intellectual  forces     ....    383 

Adaptation  of  the  school  course  to  individual  wants  and  apti- 
tudes .........    384 

Religious  and  moral  instruction       ^          ,          .          *          .    885 
Moral  teaching  latent  in  school  discipline  ....    389 

Indirect  moral  teaching  in  school  lessons  .  <          .  .391 

The  Ideal  life  and  work  of  a  school  .          .          .'  .392 

The  vocation  of  the  true  teacher      .  393 


UXORI   DILECTISSI1VLE, 

GUI  OPERA  ET  CONSILIIS  ADJUVANT! 

SI     QUID     UTILE     VEL     HODIE     SCRIPSI 

VEL  UNQUAM  EGI 

ACCEPTUM    REFERO, 

D. 


LECTURES   ON  TEACHING. 

I.    THE  TEACHER  AND  HIS  ASSISTANTS. 

THAT  the  University  of  Cambridge  should  institute  a  course 

of  lectures  on  the  Art  aud  Method  of  Teaching  is 

•^        ^  f     ±  '     Ai      •,  •  ^  f  -n  -i        ^        •      Introduction. 

a  significant  fact  in  the  history  of  Education  in 

England.  We  have  in  this  fact  a  recognition  on  high  author- 
ity of  a  principle  which  has  hitherto  been  but  imperfectly  ad- 
mitted, in  relation  to  the  higher  forms  of  school  life  and  in- 
struction, although  it  has  been  seen  in  most  beneficial  applica- 
tion to  the  elementary  schools.  That  principle  I  take  to  be, 
that  there  is  in  the  teacher's  profession  the  same  difference 
which  is  observable  in  all  other  human  employments  between 
the  skilled  and  the  unskilled  practitioner,  and  that  this  differ- 
ence depends  in  large  measure  on  a  knowledge  of  the  best 
rules  and  methods  which  have  to  be  used,  and  of  the  principles 
which  underlie  and  justify  those  rules.  It  is  easy  to  say  of  a 
schoolmaster  "  naacttur  non  fit,"  and  to  give  this  as  a  reason  why 
all  training  and  study  of  method  are  superfluous.  But  we  do 
not  reason  thus  in  regard  to  any  other  profession,  even  to  those 
in  which  original  power  tells  most,  and  in  which  the  mechanic 
is  most  easily  distinguishable  from  the  inspired  artist.  For 
when  in  the  department  of  painting  you  meet  with  a  heaven- 
born  genius,  you  teach  him  to  draw;  and  you  know  that  what- 
ever his  natural  gifts  may  be,  he  will  be  all  the  better  pro  tanto, 
for  knowing  something  about  the  best  things  that  have  been 


16  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

done  by  Ms  predecessors;  for  studying  their  failures  and  their 
successes,  and  the  reason  why  some  have  succeeded  and  others 
have  failed.  It  is  not  the  office  of  professional  training  in  art, 
in  law  or  in  medicine,  to  obliterate  the  natural  distinctions 
which  are  the  result  of  special  gifts;  but  rather  to  bring  them 
into  truer  prominence,  and  to  give  to  each  of  them  the  best  op- 
portunities of  development.  And  if  it  be  proved,  as  indeed  I 
believe  it  to  be  demonstrable,  that  some  acquaintance  with  the 
theory,  history  and  rules  of  teaching  may  often  serve  to  turn 
one  who  would  be  a  moderate  teacher  into  a  good  one,  a  good 
one  into  a  finished  and  accomplished  artist,  and  even  those  who 
are  least  qualified  by  nature  into  serviceable  helpers,  then  we 
shall  need  no  better  vindication  of  the  course  on  which  we  are 
about  to  enter. 

It  seems  scarcely  needful  to  reply  to  the  contention  of  those 
Teaching  who  urge  that  the  art  of  teaching  is  to  be  learned 
tearnedby68*  ^  Practice,  that  it  is  a  matter  of  experience  only, 
practice  only,  that  a  man  becomes  a  teacher  as  he  becomes  a 
swimmer,  not  by  talking  about  it,  but  by  going  into  the  water 
and  learning  to  keep  his  head  above  the  surface.  Experience 
it  is  true  is  a  good  school,  but  the  fees  are  high,  and  the  course 
is  apt  to  be  long  and  tedious.  And  it  is  a  great  part  of  the 
economy  of  life  to  know  how  to  turn  to  profitable  account  the 
accumulated  experience  of  others.  I  know  few  things  much 
more  pathetic  than  the  utterances  of  some  Head-masters  at  their 
annual  conferences,  at  which  one  after  another,  even  of  those 
who  have  fought  their  way  to  the  foremost  rank  of  their  pro- 
fession, rises  up  to  say,  "  We  have  been  making  experiments 
all  our  lives ;  we  have  learned  much,  but  we  have  learned  it  at 
the  expense  of  our  pupils  ;  and  much  of  the  knowledge  which 
has  thus  slowly  come  into  our  possession  might  easily  have 
been  imparted  to  us  at  the  outset,  and  have  saved  us  from  many 
mistakes."  'The  truth  in  regard  to  the  office  of  a  teacher  is 
that  which  Bacon  has  set  forth  in  its  application  to  the  largev 
work  of  life,  "  Studies  perfect  nature  and  are  perfected  by  ex- 
perience :  for  natural  abilities  are  like  natural  plants  that  need 


The   University  and  the  Teacher.  17 

pruning  by  study.  And  studies  themselves  do  give  forth  direc- 
tions too  much  at  large,  except  they  be  bounded  in  by  experi 
ence."  There  is  here,  I  think,  a  true  estimate  of  the  relation 
between  natural  aptitude,  the  study  of  principles  and  methods, 
and  the  lessons  of  experience.  Each  is  indispensable,  you  can- 
not do  without  all  three,  you  are  not  justified  in  exalting  one  at 
the  expense  of  the  rest.  It  is  in  the  just  synthesis  of  these  three 
elements  of  qualification  that  we  must  hope  to  find  the  thor- 
oughly equipped  schoolmaster,  the  teacher  of  the  future.  And 
of  these  three  elements,  it  is  manifest  that  it  is  the  second  only 
which  the  University  can  attempt  to  supply.  She  cannot  hope 
to  give  the  living  power,  the  keen  insight  into  child-nature, 
which  distinguish  the  born  teacher,  the  man  of  genius  from  the 
ordinary  pedagogue.  The  University  does  not  what  a 
need  to  be  reminded  that  the  best  part  of  a  teach-  S™y  dotoim. 
er's  equipment  is  incommunicable  in  the  form  of  prove  it. 
pedagogic  lectures ;  and  that  when  she  undertakes  to  give  a 
professional  diploma  to  the  schoolmaster,  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant qualifications  of  the  office — as  zeal,  faithfulness,  self- 
consecration,  and  personal  fitness — will  escape  her  analysis  and 
defy  her  power  to  test  them.  She  is  conscious  of  the  inevitable 
limitations  under  which  she  works,  in  regard  to  this,  as  indeed 
to  all  other  of  the  learned  professions.  It  suffices  for  her  to 
say  that  she  will  attempt  to  communicate  only  that  which  is 
communicable ;  and  to  test  so  much  as  in  its  nature  is  capable 
of  being  tested,  and  no  more.  Nor  can  the  University  to  any 
appreciable  extent  supervise  the  actual  professional  practice  of 
her  sons  and  daughters,  or  follow  them  into  the  schoolroom, 
the  laboratory  and  the  home,  to  see  how  well  they  do  their 
work,'  and  lay  to  heart  the  lessons  which  experience  has  to 
teach.  But  she  can  help  to  call  attention  to  principles  of  teach- 
ing ;  she  can  record  for  the  guidance  and  information  of  future 
teachers,  the  details  of  the  best  work  which  has  been  done 
aforetime ;  she  can  accumulate  rules  and  canons  of  the  didactic 
art,  can  warn  against  mistakes,  can  analyze  the  reasons  why  so 
much  of  scholastic  work  has  often  been  joyless,  dull  and  de- 
2 


18  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

pressing,  can  set  up  year  by  year  a  higher  standard  of  profes- 
sional excellence,  can  "allure  to  brighter  worlds  and  lead  the 
way." 

Shall  we  attribute  this  newly  awakened  ambition  to  nothing 
The  Art  of  but  t^ic  restless  spirit  of  modern  academic  life  ;  to 
Teaching,  the  discontent  with  the  old  plain  duty  of  encouraging 
cernofa  learning,  devotion  and  research,  to  a  morbid  and 
University.  uneasy  hankering  after  "  fresh  fields  and  pastures 
new"?  I  think  not.  The  great  function  of  a  University  is 
to  teach ;  and  to  supply  the  world  with  its  teachers.  The 
very  title  of  Doctor,  which  marks  the  highest  academic  dis- 
tinction in  each  of  the  faculties  of  Law,  Divinity  and  Physic 
implies  that  the  holder  is  qualified  to  teach  the  art  which 
he  knows.  And  if  the  experience  of  these  later  times  has 
brought  home  to  us  the  conviction  that  the  art  of  communi- 
cating knowledge,  of  rendering  it  attractive  to  a  learner,  is  an 
art  which  has  its  own  laws  and  its  own  special  philosophy;  it 
is  surely  fitting  that  a  great  University,  the  bountiful  mother 
whose  special  office  it  is  to  care  alike  for  all  the  best  means  of 
human  culture  and  to  assign  to  all  arts  and  sciences  their  true 
place  and  relation  should  find  an  honored  place  for  the  maetcr- 
science,  a  science  which  is  closely  allied  to  all  else  which  she 
teaches — the  science  of  teaching  itself.  It  is  not  good  that  this 
science,  or  indeed  any  other  science,  should  be  mainly  pursued 
per  se,  in  separate  training  institutions  or  professional  colleges, 
frhere  the  horizon  is  necessarily  bounded,  and  where  everything 
is  learned  with  a  special  view  to  the  future  necessities  of  the 
school  or  the  class-room.  It  is  to  the  Universities  that  the 
power  is  given  in  the  highest  degree  of  co-ordinating  the  vari- 
ous forms  of  preparation  for  the  business  of  life  ;  of  seeing  in 
due  proportion  the  study  and  the  practice,  the  art  and*  the  sci- 
ence, the  intellectual  efforts  which  make  the  man,  as  well  as 
those  which  make  the  lawyer  or  the  divine.  It  is  to  the  Uni- 
versities that  the  public  look  for  those  influences  which  will 
prevent  the  nobler  professions  from  degenerating  into  crafts 
and  trades.  And  if  the  schoolmaster  is  to  become  something 


Teaching  not  to  be  Stereotyped. 


more  than  a  mere  pedant ;  to  know  the  rules  and  formulae  of 
his  art,  and  at  the  same  time  to  estimate  them  at  their  true 
value,  it  is  to  his  University  that  he  ought  to  look  for  guidance  ; 
and  it  is  from  his  University  that  he  should  seek  in  due  time 
the  attestation  of  his  qualifications  as  a  teacher  ;  because  that  is 
the  authority  which  can  testify  that  he  is  not  merely  a  teacher, 
but  a  teacher  and  something  else. 

Even  at  the  risk  of  lingering  a  little  longer  at  the  threshold, 
I  am  tempted  to  refer  briefly  to  one  other  objection  jn(iepen- 
which  is  often  felt  by  thoughtful  people,  and  which  dence  not  dis- 
is  doubtless  present  in  the  minds  of  some  of  you,  the  study  of 
to  the  trial  of  the  novel  experiment  in  which  we  method- 
who  are  assembled  here  are  all  interested.  Teaching  is  an  art, 
it  may  be  said,  which  especially  requires  freshness  and  vigor 
of  mind.  The  ways  of  access  to  tho  intelligence  and  the  con- 
science of  learners  are  manifold;  different  circumstances  and 
intellectual  conditions  require  different  expedients.  Variety 
and  versatility  are  of  the  very  essence  of.  successful  teaching. 
If  by  seeking  to  formulate  the  science  of  method,  you  encour- 
age the  belief  that  one  mode  of  teaching  is  always  right  and  all 
others  are  wrong,  you  will  destroy  the  chance  of  new  invention 
and  discovery,  and  will  do  much  to  render  teaching  more  stereo- 
typed and  lifeless  than  ever.  And  even  if  it  be  admitted  that  a 
perfect  set  of  rules  for  practice  is  desirable  and  attainable,  we 
are  not  yet  in  a  position  to  lay  them  down;  and  any  attempt  to 
fix  educational  principles,  and  to  claim  for  them  an  authorita- 
tive or  scientific  character,  is  at  present  premature,  and  there- 
fore likely  to  prove  mischievous.  This  is  an  argument  on  which 
I,  for  one,  should  look  with  special  seriousness,  if  it  were  not 
practically  answered  by  every  day's  observation  and  experience. 
It  has  been  my  lot  to  see  schools  of  very  different  ranks  and 
pretensions,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest;  and  the  one  thing 
which  impresses  me  most  is  that  the  schools  under  untrained 
persons,  who  have  given  no  special  attention  to  the  theory  of 
their  art,  are  curiously  alike.  There  is  nothing  more  monoto- 
nous than  ignorance.  It  is  among  those  who  have  received  no 


• 

20  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

professional  preparation  that  one  finds  the  same  stupid  tradi- 
tional methods,  the  same  habit  of  telling  scholars  to  learn  in- 
stead of  teaching  them;  the  same  spectacle  of  a  master  sitting 
enthroned  at  one  end  of  a  room  and  calling  up  two  or  three  at  a 
time  to  say  their  lessons,  while  the  rest,  presumably  occupied  in 
preparation,  are  following  their  own  devices.  Let  us  appeal 
on  this  point  to  the  experience  of  other  professions.  Is  it  the 
effect  of  good  professional  training  in  medicine  or  in  law  to 
produce  a  hurtful  uniformity  either  in  opinion  or  practice?  Is 
it  not  on  the  contrary  true  that  the  most  original  methods  of 
procedure,  the  most  fruitful  new  speculations,  come  precisely 
from  the  men  who  have  best  studied  the  philosophy  of  their 
own  special  subject,  and  who  know  best  what  has  been  thought 
and  done  by  other  workers  in  the  same  field?  So  hi  teaching, 
the  freshest  and  most  ingenious  methods  originate  with  those 
men  and  women  who  have  read  and  thought  most  about  the 
rationale  of  their  art. 

And  if  in  this  place  we  are  in  any  degree  successful  in  laying 
indepen-  down  principles  of  action,  and  in  evolving  a  few  of 
thought  the  simpler  practical  deductions  from  those  princi- 
t»ntethan°r  Ples'  the  truest  test  of  our  success  will  be  found  in 
any  rules.  bringing  home  to  every  earnest  student  the  convic- 
tion that  good  teaching  is  not  an  easy  thing;  that  those  who 
undertake  to  call  out  the  intelligence  and  fashion  the  character 
of  children  are  undertaking  to  deal  with  the  most  complex  and 
wonderful  phenomena  in  the  world;  that  the  philosophy  of  the 
teacher's  art  is  yet  in  its  infancy;  that  the  best  results  we  are 
yet  able  to  attain  are  only  provisionally  serviceable  until  they 
are  absorbed  or  superseded  by  something  better;  and  that  it 
is  part  of  the  duty  of  every  one  who  enters  the  profession  to 
magnify  his  office,  to  look  on  each  of  the  problems  before  him 
in  as  many  lights  as  possible,  and  to  try  by  his  own  indepen- 
dent experiments  to  make  the  path  of  duty  easier,  safer,  and 
happier  for  his  successors. 

The  question  is  often  asked,  "Is  Education  an  Art  or  a 
Science?"  and  at  present  the  answers  to  this  question  are  not 


Teaching  an  Art  and  a  Science.  21 

unanimous.  But  in  truth  no  compendious  reply  is  possible. 
The  object  of  Science  is  the  investigation  of  princi-  Teaching 
pies,  of  truth  for  its  own  sake,  considered  as  an  ^.rt^nd  a 
end,  not  as  a  means  to  any  further  end.  But  it  is  Science, 
obvious  that  this  view  alone  will  not  carry  us  very  far.  It  may 
help  us  to  analyze  mental  processes  and  laws  of  human  devel- 
opment, but  it  may  leave  us  very  impotent  in  the  presence  of 
the  actual  problems  of  school-keeping  and  of  professional  work. 
And  the  object  of  Art  is  simply  the  accomplishment  of  a  given 
result  by  the  best  means.  Hence  we  are  justified  in  speaking 
of  Education  as  an  Art,  because  it  has  a  complex  practical  prob- 
lem to  solve.  But  this  view  of  it  alone  would  be  inadequate; 
for  in  fact  teaching  is  both  an  Art  and  a  Science.  It  aims  at 
the  accomplishment  of  a  piece  of  work,  and  is  therefore  an  Art. 
It  seeks  to  find  out  a  rational  basis  for  such  rules  as  it  employs, 
and  is  therefore  a  Science.  Down  very  deep  at  the  root  of  all 
our  failures  and  successes  there  lie  some  philosophic  truths — 
it  may  be  of  ethics,  or  of  physiology,  or  of  psychology — which 
we  have  either  heeded  or  disregarded,  and  the  full  recognition 
of  which  is  needed  to  make  us  perfect  teachers.  The  more 
these  underlying  truths  are  brought  to  light  the  better;  and  it 
is  satisfactory  to  know  that  the  University  has  made  other  and 
very  effective  provision  for  the  discussion  both  of  the  phi- 
losophy and  the  history  of  the  teacher's  work.  Here  however 
our  task  is  humbler.  We  have  to  gather  together  a  few  of  the 
plainer  lessons  of  experience,  and  to  apply  them  to  the  actual 
requirements  of  the  class-room  and  the  school.  Yet,  if  while 
thus  regarding  Education  as  an  Art  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  also  a  Science,  we  shall  be  in  danger  of  becoming 
empirics,  and  of  treating  our  work  as  if  it  were  a  mere  knack, 
a  collection  of  ingenious  artifices  for  achieving  a  certain  desired 
end.  This  is  a  danger  not  less  real  than  would  be  incurred  by 
those  who  in  their  zeal  to  vindicate  the  claims  of  Education  to 
the  name  and  character  of  a  Science  resolved  it  merely  into  a 
series  of  speculations  into  the  relative  value  of  different  forms 
of  human  knowledge,  or  into  the  constitution  of  the  human 


22  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

mind.  Those  who  ask  us  to  think  of  Education  as  a  Science 
must  remember  that  it  is  an  Applied  Science,  whose  principles 
are  largely  derived  from  experiment  and  observation,  and  need 
to  be  constantly  reduced  to  practice  and  brought  to  the  test  of 
utility.  And  we  on  the  other  hand  who  are  seeking  for  some 
rules  and  counsels  by  which  we  may  guide  our  practice  and 
economize  our  resources  must  not  forget  that  such  rules  and 
counsels  have  no  claim  upon  our  acceptance,  except  in  so  far 
as  they  have  their  origin  in  a  true  philosophy,  and  can  be  justi- 
fied by  reason  and  by  the  constitution  of  human  nature. 

Now  in  regard  to  all  the  duties  of  life  there  has  to  be  con- 
The  u  llfl  sidered  the  correlation  between  the  thing  to  be 
tionsof  a  per-  done  and  the  doer  of  it;  the  qualities  of  the  agent 
ier*  largely  determine  the  character  and  the  results  of 
the  work.  In  all  mechanical  labor,  in  which  matter  alone  has 
to  be  acted  on,  the  physical  strength  and  tactual  skill  of  the 
artisan  are  the  determining  forces;  his  motives  and  moral  quali- 
fications have  little  to  do  with  the  result.  But  in  the  case  of 
the  schoolmaster,  as  in  that  of  the  priest,  or  of  the  statesman, 
mind  and  character  have  to  be  influenced;  and  it  is  found  that 
in  the  long-run  nothing  can  influence  character  like  character. 
You  teach,  not  only  by  what  you  say  and  do,  but  very  largely 
by  what  you  are.  Hence  there  is  a  closer  correspondence  in 
this  department  of  human  labor  than  in  others  between  the 
quality  of  the  work  and  the  attributes  of  the  workman.  You 
cannot  dissociate  the  two.  And  because  in  the  profession  of 
teaching  the  ruler  or  agent  comes  into  closer  contact  with  the 
person  ruled  than  in  any  other  profession,  it  becomes  here 
specially  needful  to  inquire  not  only  what  is  the  character  of 
the  work  to  be  done,  but  what  manner  of  men  and  women  they 
should  be  who  undertake  to  do  it.  We  may  then,  I  think,  use- 
fully employ  some  of  our  time  in  considering  rather  the  artist 
than  his  art — the  qualifications  which  the  ideal  teacher  should 
bring  to  his  work. 

It  seems  a  trite  thing  to  say  that  the  teacher  of  a  given  subject 
should  first  of  all  possess  a  full  and  exact  knowledge  of  the 


The  Ideal  Teacher.  23 

subject  which  he   essays  to  teach.    But  I  am  not  sure  that 
the  full  significance  of  this  obvious  maxim  is  al-   Ampie  a^j 
ways  recognized.     Some  of  us  imagine  that  if  we   accurate 

i     '  w**i        i,     A      t  i    11  knowledge 

keep  a  little  ahead  of  our  pupils,  we  shall  sue-  of  the  thing 
ceed  very  well.  But  the  truth  is  that  no  one  can  tausht- 
teach  the  whole,  or  even  the  half  of  what  he  knows.  There 
is  a  large  percentage  of  waste  and  loss  in  the  very  act  of 
transmission,  and  you  can  never  convey  into  another  mind 
nearly  all  of  what  you  know  or  feel  on  any  subject.  Before 
you  can  impart  a  given  piece  of  knowledge,  you  yourself  must 
not  only  have  appropriated  it,  you  must  have  gone  beyond  it 
and  all  round  it;  must  have  seen  it  in  its  true  relations  to  other 
facts  or  truths;  must  know  out  of  what  it  originated,  and  to 
what  others  it  is  intended  to  lead.  A  person  cannot  teach  a 
rule  of  Arithmetic — say  division — intelligently,  without  having 
himself  mastered  many  advanced  rules,  nay,  without  some 
knowledge  of  Algebra  as  well.  Your  own  experience,  if  you 
watch  it,  will  force  this  truth  upon  you.  You  hear  a  story,  or 
you  receive  an  explanation  of  a  new  fact.  The  thing  seems 
perfectly  intelligible  to  you,  and  you  receive  it  with  satisfaction 
and  without  a  suspicion  that  anything  more  is  wanting.  But 
you  try  to  tell  the  story  or  reproduce  the  explanation,  and  you 
find  quite  unexpectedly  that  there  are  weak  points  in  your 
memory,  that  something  or  other  which  did  not  seem  necessary 
when  you  were  receiving  it  is  necessary  to  your  communicat- 
ing it:  and  that  this  something  lies  outside  and  beyond  the 
truth  or  incident  itself.  Or  you  are  giving  a  lesson  on  some 
subject  on  which  your  information  is  limited,  or  has  been 
specially  prepared  for  the  occasion,  and  you  give  it  under  a 
consciousness  that  you  are  very  near  the  boundary  of  your  own 
knowledge,  and  that  if  certain  further  explanations  were  asked 
for  you  could  not  supply  them.  Is  it  not  true  that  this  latent 
consciousness  begins  to  show  itself  in  your  teaching;  that  you 
falter  and  speak  less  positively,  and  that  your  scholar  who 
shows  curious  acuteness  in  discerning  whether  you  are  speak- 
ing from  a  full  mind  or  not  finds  out  the  truth  directly,  and  so 


24  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

your  lesson  is  a  failure?  And  the  moral  of  this  is  that  if  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  accuracy,  or  a  certain  strength  of  conviction,  is 
necessary  for  a  learner,  much  greater  accuracy,  and  a  still 
stronger  conviction,  is  needful  for  the  teacher:  if  you  want  to 
teach  well  the  half  of  a  subject,  know  first  for  yourself  the 
whole  or  nearly  the  whole  of  it:  have  a  good  margin  of  thought 
and  of  illustration  in  reserve  for  dealing  with  the  unexpected 
questions  and  difficulties  which  may  emerge  in  the  course  of  the 
lesson,  and  look  well  before  beginning,  not  only  at  the  thing  you 
want  to  teach,  but  at  as  much  else  as  possible  of  what  lies  near 
it,  or  is  akin  to  it. 
And  if  this  be  true  there  arises  the  necessity  for  looking 

_  .         into  ourselves  and  carefully  gauging  our  resources 

Preparation.     ,    .  ,      .     4 

before  we  begin  to  give  even  the  humblest  lesson. 

Before  undertaking  a  matter  so  simple  as  hearing  a  class  read, 
we  should  glance  over  the  passage  and  determine  on  what 
words  it  will  be  well  to  dwell  by  way  of  explanation  and  what 
form  of  illustration  should  be  brought  to  bear  upon  it.  Even 
if  you  are  going  to  give  an  exposition  of  a  rule  in  Arithmetic, 
or  of  the  use  of  the  Ablative,  it  is  wise  to  select  beforehand  and 
mentally  to  rehearse  your  illustrative  examples;  to  see  that  the 
instances  chosen  have  no  irrelevant  factors  in  them,  but  are 
calculated  to  furnish  the  most  effective  examples  of  the  particu- 
lar truth  which  you  wish  to  explain.  However  simple  the 
subject  of  a  lesson,  it  is  never  so  good  when  unpremeditated 
as  it  would  be  with  a  little  pre-arrangement  and  forethought. 
And  for  all  lessons  which  do  not  lie  in  the  ordinary  routine, 
the  careful  preparation  of  notes  is  indispensable;  it  is  only  by 
such  preparation  that  you  can  determine  how  much  can  fairly 
be  attempted  in  the  prescribed  time,  what  is  the  order  in  which 
the  parts  should  be  taken  up,  how  they  should  cohere,  at  what 
points  you  should  recapitulate,  and  how  you  can  give  unity 
bnd  point  to  the  general  impression  you  desire  to  leave. 

And  further,  a  true  teacher  never  thinks  his  education 
complete,  but  is  always  seeking  to  add  to  his  own  knowledge. 
The  moment  any  man  ceases  to  be  a  systematic  student,  he 


Extra-professional  Knowledge.  25 

ceases  to  be  an  effective  teacher;  he  gets  out  of  sympathy  with 
learners,  he  loses  sight  of  the  process  by  which  new  The  teacher 
truth  enters  into  the  mind;  he  becomes  unable  ^^{fa 
to  understand  fully  the  difficulties  experienced  learner, 
by  others  who  are  receiving  knowledge  for  the  first  time.  It  is 
by  the  act  of  acquiring,  and  by  watching  the  process  by  which 
you  yourself  acquire,  that  you  can  help  others  to  acquire.  It 
is  not  intended  by  this  that  the  thing  thus  acquired  should  be 
merely  a  greater  store  of  what  may  be  called  school  learning, 
or  of  what  has  a  conscious  and  visible  bearing  on  the  work  of 
school.  It  is  true  that  we  can  never  know  all  that  is  to  be 
known,  even  about  the  subjects  which  we  teach  in  schools. 
Mathematics,  History,  Philology  are  constantly  subject  to 
new  developments,  are  stretching  out  into  new  fields,  and  be- 
coming capable  of  new  and  unexpected  applications  to  the 
needs  and  to  the  business  of  life.  There  should  never  be  a 
time  in  the  history  of  a  teacher  at  which,  even  in  regard  to 
these  purely  scholastic  subjects,  he  is  content  to  say,  "I  know 
now  all  that  needs  to  be  known  for  my  purpose.  I  have  an 
ample  store  of  facts  and  illustrations  at  my  command,  and 
may  now  draw  freely  upon  it."  Still  the  question,  "What 
has  this  or  that  study  to  do  with  the  main  business  of  my  life? 
How  far  will  this  kind  of  reading  Ull  upon  my  professional 
work  in  school?"  though  it  naturally  occurs  to  a  conscientious 
man,  is  narrowing  and  rather  ignoble.  The  man  is  something 
greater  than  the  teacher.  The  human  needs  crave  N  .  . 
to  be  satisfied  even  more  than  the  professional,  scholastic 
Our  work  makes  the  centre  of  our  world  no  ' 
doubt;  but  life  needs  a  circumference  as  well  as  a  centre,  and 
that  circumference  is  made  up  of  sympathies  and  tastes  which 
are  extra-professional.  And  in  relation  to  the  tastes  and  read- 
ing of  your  own  leisure  I  would  say:  When  your  more  strictly 
professional  work  is  done,  follow  resolutely  your  own  bent; 
cultivate  that  side  of  your  intellectual  life  on  which  you  feel 
that  the  most  fruitful  results  are  to  be  attained,  and  do  not  sup- 
pose that  your  profession  demands  of  you  a  cold  and  impartial 


26  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

interest  in  all  truth  alike,  or  that  what  to  others  is  a  solace  and 
delight,  to  you  is  to  be  nothing  but  so  much  stock  in  trade.  If 
when  I  see  a  school,  and  ask  the  teacher  what  is  its  special 
feature,  or  in  what  subject  the  scholars  take  most  interest,  he 
replies,  "O,  there  is  nothing  distinctive  about  our  course,  we 
pay  equal  attention  to  all  subjects,"  I  know  well  that  his  heart 
is  not  in  his  work.  For  over  and  above  the  necessary  and 
usual  subjects  every  good  school  ought  to  reflect  in  some  way 
the  special  tastes  of  the  teacher.  The  obvious  demands  of 
your  profession  and  of  the  public  must  first  be  satisfied.  And 
when  they  are  satisfied,  one  mind  will  be  drawn  to  the  exact 
sciences,  another  to  poetry  and  the  cultivation  of  the  .imagina- 
tive faculty,  another  to  the  observation  of  the  phenomena  of 
nature,  a  fourth  to  the  sciences  of  history  and  of  man.  Be 
sure  that  no  study  thus  honestly  and  affectionately  pursued  can 
be  without  important  bearings  on  your  special  work.  Every- 
thing you  learn,  even  in  matters  like  these,  will  tell  in  ways 
you  little  suppose  on  the  success  of  your  lessons,  will  furnish 
happy  digressions,  or  will  suggest  new  illustrations.  "Tout 
est  dans  tout,"  said  Jacotot,  by  which  I  suppose  he  meant  that 
all  true  knowledge  is  nearly  akin,  and  that  any  one  fact  hon- 
estly acquired  sheds  light  on  many  others,  and  makes  every 
other  fact  easier  to  acquire.  The  one  thing  you  dread  most  in 
your  pupils,  dread  most  in  yourself — stagnation,  acquiescence 
in  routine,  torpor  of  mind,  indifference  to  knowledge.  When 
your  own  soul  loses  the  receptive  faculty,  ceases  to  give  a  joy- 
ous welcome  to  new  truth,  be  sure  you  have  lost  the  power  of 
stimulating  the  mental  activity  of  others,  or  of  instructing  them 
to  any  real  purpose. 

Old  Roger  Ascham  in  his  Scholemaster,  the  oldest  educa- 
tional book  in  England,  describes  his  ideal  student  and  teacher 
as  Philoponos,  "one  who  hath  lust  to  labour, :>  and  Zetetikos, 
"  one  that  is  always  desirous  to  search  out  any  doubt,  not 
ashamed  to  learn  of  the  meanest,  nor  afraid  to  go  to  the  great 
est,  until  he  be  perfectly  taught  and  fully  satisfied. ;>  And 
these  qualities  are  still  as  indispensable  as  ever.  There  must 


Temper.  27 

be  in  the  perfectly  successful  teacher  a  love  of  work  for  its  own 
sake.  The  profession  is  no  doubt  laborious;  but  as  it  has  been 
well  said,  "It  is  not  labor,  but  vexation  that  hurts  a  man." 
Trouble  comes  from  mismanaged  labor,  from  distasteful  labor, 
from  labor  which  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  doing  ill,  but  not 
from  labor  itself  when  it  is  well  organized  and  successful. 
Then  there  arises  a  positive  delight  in  the  putting  forth  of 
power,  and  in  the  sense  that  difficulties  are  being  overcome. 

Familiar  as  the  truth  is,  it  is  worth  reiterating  that  while 
teaching  is  one  of  the  professions  which  most  tries 
the  patience,  it  is  one  in  which  the  maintenance 
of  a  cheerful  and  happy  temper  is  most  essential.  Some  of  us 
are  conscious  of  a  tendency  to  hasty  unguarded  words,  to  petu- 
lance, and  to  sudden  flashes  of  injustice.  Such  a  tendency  may 
become  a  great  misfortune  to  a  teacher,  and  lead  to  conse- 
quences he  may  regret  all  his  life.  And  I  have  known  those 
who,  having  chosen  the  vocation  of  a  teacher  and  being  at  the 
same  time  aware  of  their  own  infirmity  in  this  respect,  have  so 
guarded  and  watched  themselves,  that  their  profession  has  be- 
come to  them  a  means  of  moral  discipline,  and  has  sweetened 
and  ennobled  tempers  naturally  very  hasty  or  very  sour.  But 
be  this  as  it  may,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  take  some  pains 
with  ourselves  and  cultivate  patience  and  forbearance,  we  are 
singularly  out  of  place  in  the  profession  of  schoolmaster.  We 
want  patience,  because  the  best  results  of  teaching  come  very 
slowly;  we  want  habitual  self-command,  because  if  we  are  im- 
pulsive or  variable  and  do  not  obey  our  own  rules  we  cannot 
hope  scholars  will  obey  them.  Chronic  sullenness  or  acerbity 
of  temper  makes  its  possessor  unhappy  in  any  position,  but  it  is 
a  source  of  perpetual  irritation  and  misery  in  a  school.  "  That 
boy,"  said  Dr.  Johnson  when  speaking  of  a  sulky  and  unhappy 
looking  lad,  "looks  like  the  son  of  a  schoolmaster,  which  is 
one  of  the  very  worst  conditions  of  childhood.  Such  a  boy 
has  no  father,  or  worse  than  none,  he  never  can  reflect  on  his 
parent,  but  the  reflection  brings  to  his  mind  some  idea  of  pain 
inflicted  or  of  sorrow  suffered."  Poor  Johnson's  own  scholas- 


28  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

tic  experiences,  which,  both  as  learner  and  as  teacher,  had  not 
been  delightful  ones,  led  him  no  doubt  to  an  exaggerated  view 
of  the  misery  of  school-keeping  as  he  had  seen  it.  But  he  did 
not  exaggerate  the  mischievous  effect  of  a  regime  of  brute  force, 
and  of  a  hard  and  ill-tempered  pedagogue  on  the  character  of  a 
child.  Injustice  breeds  injustice.  Every  act  of  petulance  or 
ill-temper  will  have  some  effect  in  deteriorating  the  character 
of  the  pupils,  and  will  be  reproduced  in  their  own  conduct 
towards  their  juniors  or  inferiors.  Dr.  Channing  has  well  said 
that  "  a  boy  compelled  for  six  hours  a  day  to  see  the  counte- 
nance and  hear  the  voice  of  a  fretful,  unkind,  hard  or  passion- 
ate man  is  placed  in  a  school  of  vice." 

The  need  of  constant  cheerfulness  on  the  part  of  a  teacher  be- 
comes more  apparent  when  we  consider  the  nature 
Cheerfulness.       -,.,-,,        ,        T  ...  ..„  .  . 

of  childhood.     In  some  professions  an  artificial 

gravity  of  demeanor  is  not  inappropriate.  The  clergyman  or 
the  surgeon  has  much  to  do  at  the  bedside,  in  the  house  of 
mourning,  with  the  sick  and  the  suffering,  where  anything  ap- 
proaching to  levity  would  often  be  unbecoming.  But  the  in- 
tercourse of  a  teacher  is  with  the  young,  the  strong  and  the 
happy,  and  he  makes  a  great  mistake  if  he  thinks  that  a  severe 
and  forbidding  manner  is  required  by  the  dignity  of  his  call- 
ing. A  good  fund  of  animal  spirits  puts  the  teacher  at  once 
into  sympathetic  rapport  with  his  pupils,  because  it  shows  them 
that  seriousness  of  purpose  need  not  mean  dulness,  and  that  the 
possession  of  learning  is  not  incompatible  with  a  true  enjoyment 
of  life.  "We  must  not  forget  that  to  a  little  child  the  teacher  is 
the  possessor  of  unfathomable  erudition,  the  representative  and 
embodiment  of  that  learning  which  he  himself  is  being  urged 
to  acquire.  And  if  he  sees  that  the  acquirement  of  it  has 
rather  made  the  teacher's  life  gloomy  than  bright  or  joyous, 
he  may  not  put  his  inference  into  the  form  of  a  proposition,  but 
he  will  none  the  less  surely  acquire  a  dislike  for  knowledge, 
and  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  it  cannot  be  such  a  cheering 
and  beautiful  thing  after  all.  It  is  well  known  that  the  men 
and  women  most  influential  in  the  schoolroom  are  those  who 


Activity  and  Cheerfulness.  29 

know  how  to  share  the  enjoyment  of  their  scholars  in  the  play- 
ground; who  at  least  do  not  frown  at  children's  play,  but  show 
an  interest  in  it,  recognize  it  as  a  proper  and  necessary  employ- 
ment of  time,  and  indeed  can  play  heartily  themselves  when 
the  proper  occasion  comes.  Many  of  the  influences  which  sur- 
round a  teacher's  life  have  a  special  tendency  to  encourage  a 
sedentary  and  physically  inactive  habit,  and  it  is  also  observ- 
able that  persons  are  not  unfrequently  attracted  to  the  profes- 
sion of  teaching  because  they  are  not  strong,  and  are  studiously 
inclined.  But  it  ought  never  to  be  forgotten  that  bodily  activ- 
ity is  a  very  valuable  qualification  in  a  teacher  and  should  be 
cultivated  as  far  as  possible;  not  rapidly  lost  as  it  too  often  is. 
That  eminent  schoolmaster  showed  a  true  appreciation  of  his 
work  who  said,  "Whenever  the  day  comes  in  which  I  find  I 
cannot  run  upstairs  three  at  a  time  I  shall  think  it  high  tune 
to  retire." 

And  among  other  merely  physical  qualifications  necessary  in 
a  teacher  one  cannot  overlook  the  need  of  great  Ouick  Wir_ 
quickness  both  of  eye  and  of  ear.  These  are  in-  ceptionof  eye 
dispensable.  In  standing  before  a  class,  whether  a 
it  be  large  or  small,  it  is  essential  to  stand  so  that  every  mem- 
ber of  it  should  be  brought  into  focus  so  to  speak,  that  the  eye 
should  take  in  all  that  is  going  on,  and  that  no  act  or  move- 
ment should  escape  notice.  I  am  more  and  more  struck,  as  I 
look  at  schools,  with  the  importance  of  this.  I  often  see  teach- 
ers who  either  place  themselves  so  that  they  cannot  see  every 
pupil,  or  who,  by  keeping  the  eye  fixed  either  on  the  book  or 
on  one  particular  part  of  the  class,  fail  to  check  indifference  or 
inattention  simply  because  they  do  not  see  it  and  are  not  in- 
stantly conscious  of  it.  No  real  intellectual  drill  or  discipline 
is  possible  in  such  a  class.  It  is  a  great  thing  therefore  to  cul- 
tivate in  yourself  the  habit  of  glancing  rapidly,  of  fixing  the 
gaze  instantly  on  any  child  who  is  wandering  or  disobedient, 
and  applying  a  remedy  without  delay.  And  the  need  for  a 
remedy  will  steadily  dimmish  as  your  own  vigilance  increases. 
Let  scholars  know  that  every  deviation  from  rule,  every  wan- 


80  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

dering  look,  every  carelessly  written  letter  in  a  copy  is  sure  to 
be  at  once  recognized  by  your  quick  glance,  and  they  will  cease 
very  soon  to  give  you  much  to  detect.  But  let  them  see  always 
before  them  a  heavy  eye,  an  unobservant  manner,  which  per- 
mits let  us  say  two  out  of  every  three  faults  to  pass  undiscov- 
ered, and  they  are  skilful  enough  in  the  doctrine  of  chances  to 
know  well  in  effect  what  this  means.  It  means  that  the  prob- 
ability is  two  to  one  against  the  detection  of  any  given  fault, 
and  you  will  find  that  in  this  way,  the  chances  being  largely  in 
favor  of  the  disobedient  one,  disobedient  acts  will  be  multiplied 
in  far  greater  proportion  still.  The  teacher's  ear  too  should  be 
trained  to  a  sensitive  perception  of  all  discordant  or  unpermitted 
sounds.  It  should  be  acute  to  distinguish  between  the  legiti- 
mate noise  of  work  and  the  noise  which  impedes  work  or  is  in- 
consistent with  it.  Obvious  as  this  is,  many  school  masters  and 
mistresses  waste  much  time  and  add  greatly  to  the  difficulties 
of  their  duty  by  disregarding  it.  Quick  sensibility,  both  of 
ear  and  of  eye,  are  special  natural  gifts  with  a  few;  but  they 
may  be  acquired  with  the  help  of  cultivation,  even  by  those 
who  have  not  been  gifted  by  nature,  if  they  only  believe  them 
to  be  worth  having  and  take  a  little  pains  to  obtain  them.  I 
may  add  that  if  a  teacher  possesses  enough  knowledge  of  the 
art  of  drawing  to  enable  him  to  make  impromptu  rough  dia- 
grams illustrative  of  his  lessons,  the  accomplishment  is  one 
which  will  add  much  to  his  effective  power. 
And  may  we  not  enumerate  among  the  physical  attributes 
which  go  to  make  a  perfect  teacher,  a  gentle  and 
yet  an  authoritative  voice?  There  is  necessarily  a 
great  expenditure  of  voice  in  teaching,  and  it  is  of  much  im- 
portance to  know  how  to  economize  it.  As  years  go  on,  those 
whose  profession  obliges  them  to  talk  much  ore  rolundo  begin 
to  find  the  vocal  organs  weak  and  overworked,  and  to  regret  all 
useless  exertion  of  vocal  power.  And  thus  it  should  be  borne 
in  mind  from  the  first  that  simply  from  the  point  of  view  of 
one's  bodily  health  it  is  not  good  to  shout  or  cry  or  lift  up  the 
voice  unnecessarily.  It  is  a  great  point  in  what  you  may  call 


Pedantry.  31 

the  dynamics  of  teaching  to  effect  the  maximum  result  with  the 
minimum  of  effort.  And  it  happens  that  in  regard  to  the  voice, 
a  low  tone  not  only  effects  as  much  as  a  loud  one,  but  it  actually 
effects  more.  The  key  at  which  the  teacher's  voice  is  habitually 
pitched  determines  the  tone  of  all  the  school  work.  Children 
will  all  shout  if  you  shout.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you  deter- 
mine never  to  raise  your  voice  when  you  give  a  command  they 
will  be  compelled  to  listen  to  you,  and  to  this  end  to  subjugate 
their  own  voices  habitually,  and  to  carry  on  all  their  work  in 
quietness.  The  moral  effect  of  this  on  the  character  of  the 
pupils  is  not  insignificant.  A  noisy  school  is  one  in  which  a 
great  opportunity  of  civilizing  and  softening  the  manners  is 
habitually  lost.  And  a  school  whose  work  is  always  done  on  a 
low  tone  is  one  in  which  not  only  is  the  teacher  healthier,  and 
better  able  to  economize  the  resources  of  his  own  life,  but  as  a 
place  of  moral  discipline  it  is  far  more  effective. 

Touching  the  matter  of  speech,  which  among  the  minor  con- 
ditions of  effective  and  happy  school-keeping  is  of 
far  more  significance  than  it  may  at  first  appear, 
I  should  like  to  add  that  some  teachers  seem  to  think  it  neces- 
sary to  affect  a  studied  precision  in  language,  and  to  cultivate 
little  crotchets  as  to  elegant  pronunciation  which  are  unknown 
outside  of  the  school  world.  The  perfection  of  language  is  the 
perfection  of  a  transparent  glass;  it  is  the  virtue  of  self-efface- 
ment. By  it  and  through  it  one  mind  should  look  right  into 
another  and  see  exactly  the  thing  which  has  to  be  seen;  but  if 
the  medium  is  itself  visible,  if  it  challenge  attention  to  itself,  it 
is,  in  just  that  degree,  an  imperfect  medium,  and  fails  to  fulfil 
its  highest  purpose.  Ars  est  celare  artem.  The  moment  our 
speech  becomes  so  precise  and  so  proper  that  its  precision  and 
propriety  become  themselves  noticeable  things,  that  moment 
we  cease  to  be  good  speakers  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word. 
Ours  is  the  one  profession  in  which  there  is  the  greatest  tempta- 
tion to  little  pedantries  of  this  kind,  and  it  may  therefore  not  be 
unfitting  to  refer  to  it.  He  whose  speech  or  manner  proclaims 
him  to  be  a  schoolmaster  is  not  yet  a  perfect  adept  in  his  art. 


32  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

We  may  not  conceal  from  ourselves  that  in  society  those  whose 
manners  and  speech  betray  them  thus  are  not  popular,  and  that 
they  are  not  unfrequently  spoken  of  as  pedants.  Now  what  is 
it  to  be  a  pedant  ?  It  is  to  have  our  vision  so  narrowed  by  the 
particular  duty  we  have  in  hand  that  we  see  it  and  other  peoples' 
duties,  so  to  speak,  in  false  perspective,  and  mistake  the  relative 
importance  of  our  own  doings  and  theirs.  In  this  sense  there 
are  pedants  in  all  professions,  and  it  must  be  owned  that  they 
are  often  the  people  most  devoted  to  their  work.  But  the  pro- 
fession of  teaching  is  more  often  credited  with  this  particular 
vice  than  any  other,  and  for  a  very  obvious  reason.  ' '  We  are 
never  at  our  ease,"  says  Charles  Lamb,  "  in  the  presence  of  a 
schoolmaster,  because  we  know  he  is  not  at  his  ease  in  ours. 
He  comes  like  Gulliver  from  among  his  little  people,  and  he 
cannot  fit  the  stature  of  his  understanding  to  yours.  He  is  so 
used  to  teaching  that  he  wants  to  be  teaching  you."  The  truth 

To  be  cor-  *s  ^"a*  *^e  one  excepti°nal  circumstance  of  a 
rected  by  lib-  teacher's  life,  the  necessity  of  passing  many  hours 
fes'  a  day  with  those  who  know  so  much  less  than 
ourselves,  and  who,  because  of  their  own  youth  and  ignorance, 
look  up  to  us  as  prodigies  of  learning,  is  very  unfavorable  to  a 
.  perfectly  just  estimate  of  ourselves,  and  is  calculated  to  make 
us  put  a  higher  value  than  it  deserves  on  the  sort  of  knowledge 
which  gives  us  this  accidental  ascendency  over  the  little  people. 
We  ought  to  know  this  and  to  be  on  our  guard  against  it.  And 
after  all,  if  there  be  a  certain  faulty  tone  of  mind  and  character 
produced  by  the  habit  of  spending  much  time  with  our  intel- 
lectual inferiors,  the  true  remedy  is  obvious;  it  is  to  take  care 
that  out  of  school  we  spend  our  time  as  much  as  possible  with 
our  intellectual  superiors.  We  may  seek  them  in  society,  or  if 
they  are  not  easily  accessible  there,  we  may  always  have  re- 
course to  the  great  silent  companions  of  our  solitude,  the  wise 
and  the  noble  who  speak  to  us  from  our  libraries,  and  in  whose 
presence  we  are  no  .longer  teachers,  but  reverent  disciples. 

Another  corrective  to  the  special  danger  of  the  scholastic 
profession  is  to  have  some  one  intellectual  interest — some  favor- 


Power  of  Describing  and  Narrating.          33 

ite  pursuit  or  study  —  which  is  wholly  unprofessional,  and 
bears  no  visible  relation  to  school  work.     I  have   and , 
known  many  teachers  who  have  been  saved  from   work  out  of 
the  narrowness  and  pedantry  to  which  their  duties 
would  have  inclined  them,  by  their  love  of  archaeology  pr  art, 
or  their  interest  in  some  social  or  public  question.     This  extra- 
scholastic  interest  has  brought  them  into  contact  with  other 
people  whom  they  meet  on  equal  terms;  it  has  helped  them  to 
escape  from  the  habit  of  using  the  Imperative  Mood,  and  to  see 
their  own  professional  work  in  truer  relations  with  the  larger 
world  of  thought  and  action,  of  which  after  all  a  school  is 
only  a  small  part.     We  all  need,  in  playing  our  part  in  life,  to 
perform  some  at  least  of  it  in  the  presence  of  an  audience 
which  habitually  demands  our  best. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  necessity  for  laying  all  your  private 
reading  under  contribution,  and  for  bringing  it  to  Power  of  de_ 
bear  by  way  of  illustration  or  otherwise  in  vivify-  scribing  and 
ing  the  teaching  given  in  a  class.  But  to  do  this 
well  it  is  essential  that  the  skilled  teacher  should  cultivate  in 
himself  the  rather  rare  gift  of  telling  a  story  well.  There  are 
some  who  are  good  raconteurs  by  nature  or  by  instinct.  They 
know  how  to  seize  the  right  point,  to  reject  what  is  irrelevant, 
and  to  keep  up  by  their  mode  of  telling  it  the  hearer's  interest  in 
any  narrative  they  relate.  But  even  those  who  have  no  natural 
aptitude  of  this  kind  may  acquire  it  by  practice,  and  such  an 
aptitude  when  acquired  is  most  serviceable  in  teaching.  Watch 
therefore  for  good  pieces  of  description  which  come  in  your 
way  in  books  or  newspapers,  or  for  effective  stories  which  you 
hear;  and  practise  yourself  often  in  reproducing  them.  Observe 
the  effect  of  telling  such  a  story  when  you  give  it  to  a  class,  see 
when  it  is  that  the  eye  brightens,  and  the  attitude  becomes  one 
of  unconscious  fixedness  and  tension;  and  observe  also  when  it 
is  that  the  interest  languishes  and  the  attention  is  relaxed.  A 
very  little  experience  of  this  kind,  if  superadded  to  thoughtful- 
ness,  to  some  care  in  the  choice  of  materials,  and  to  a  genuine 
desire  to  interest  the  scholars,  will  go  far  to  make  any  one  of 
3 


34  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

ordinary  intelligence  a  good  narrator;  and  therefore  to  give 
him  a  new  and  effective  instrument  for  gaining  their  attention 
and  for  doing  them  good. 

There  is  indeed  an  abiding  necessity  for  the  application  of 
Freshness  of  fresh  thought  to  every  detail  of  school  work. 
mind-  There  is  no  method,  however  good,  which  does 

not  want  to  be  modified  and  reconstructed  from  time  to  time; 
no  truth,  however  true,  which  does  not  need  to  be  stated  now 
and  then  in  a  new  form,  and  to  have  fresh  spirit  infused  into 
its  application.  It  is  true  of  rules  of  teaching  as  of  higher 
matters,  "  The  letter  killeth,  the  spirit  giveth  life."  But  even 
this  is  not  the  whole  truth.  For  the  spirit  is  constantly  tend- 
ing to  fix  and  embody  itself  and  to  become  the  letter,  unless  we 
are  ever  on  our  guard.  We  know  how  often  it  has  happened 
in  the  history  of  religion  that  a  great  reforming  movement, 
which  has  begun  in  the  shape  of  a  protest,  and  perhaps  a  very 
effective  protest,  against  formalism  and  mechanical  religion, 
has  in  time  come  to  have  its  own  watchwords  and  stereotyped 
usages,  and  has  ended  by  being  just  as  cold  and  unspiritual  as 
that  which  it  has  sought  to  supersede.  And  this  has  been  no 
less  true  in  the  history  of  education.  The  new  thought,  the 
bright  rational  method  seeks  to  embody  itself  in  a  rule  of  ac- 
tion. While  this  process  is  going  on,  all  is  well.  But  when  it 
is  at  an  end,  and  the  rule  is  arrived  at,  then  comes  the  relapse 
into  verbalism.  Routine  is  always  easier  than  intelligence. 
And  some  of  the  most  worthless  of  all  routine  is  —  not  the 
traditional  routine  of  the  medieval  schools,  which  is  known 
to  be  mechanical,  and  is  accepted  as  such — but  the  routine  at 
first  devised  by  enthusiasts,  and  afterwards  adopted  by  dull 
uninspired  people,  who  think  that  they  can  learn  the  method 
of  Socrates,  of  Arnold,  or  of  Frobel  as  they  could  learn  a  system 
of  calisthenics  or  of  short-hand.  C&rruptio  optimi  pessima  cst. 
It  is  very  touching  to  read  M.  Michel  Breal's  account  of  a  visit 
to  Pestaloz7.i,  at  the  end  of  his  career.  He  describes  the  old 
man,  pointing  with  his  finger  to  the  black-board,  to  his  dia- 


Sympathy.  35 

grams  and  to  the  names  of  the  qualities  of  objects,  while  the 
children  repeated  mechanically  his  favorite  watchwords,  which 
they  had  learned  by  heart.  Those  words  had  once  been  full  of 
meaning.  But  they  had  ceased  to  represent  real  intellectual 
activity  on  the  children's  part,  or  on  his.  They  had  become 
dead  formulas,  though  he  knew  it  not.  And  so  it  will  ever  be, 
with  you  and  with  me,  if  we  lose  the  habit  of  looking  at  all  our 
methods  with  fresh  eyes,  of  revising  them  continually,  and  im- 
pregnating them  anew  with  life.  It  would  be  a  melancholy 
result  of  the  humble  and  tentative  efforts  which,  under  the 
encouragement  of  the  University,  we  are  now  seeking  to  make 
after  an  Art  of  teaching,  if  by  them  any  of  us  were  led  to  sup- 
pose that  it  was  an  art  to  be  acquired  by  anybody  once  for  all. 
In  truth,  though  we  may  enter  on  the  inheritance  of  some  of 
the  storcd-up  experience  of  others,  each  of  us  must  in  his  own 
experience  begin  at  the  beginning,  and  be  responsible  for  the 
adaptation  of  that  experience  to  the  special  needs  of  his  pupils, 
as  well  as  to  the  claims  of  his  own  idiosyncrasies  and  convic- 
tions. Nothing  can  ever  be  so  effective  as  the  voice,  the  enthu- 
siasm, the  personal  influence  of  the  living  teacher.  Without 
these,  apparatus,  pictures,  helps,  methods,  degenerate  soon  into 
mere  processes  and  a  sterile  mnemonic.  And  no  set  of  rules, 
however  good,  can  ever  release  us  from  the  necessity  of  fashion- 
ing new  rules,  each  for  himself. 

And  it  need  hardly  be  said  here  that  the  one  crowning  quali- 
fication of  a  perfect  teacher  is  sympathy — sym- 
pathy with  young  children,  with  their  wants  and  ym 
their  ways;  and  that  without  this  all  other  qualifications  fail 
to  achieve  the  highest  results.  The  true  teacher  ought  to  be 
drawn  towards  the  profession  by  natural  inclination,  by  a  con- 
viction of  personal  fitness,  and  by  a  wish  to  dedicate  himself 
and  the  best  powers  and  faculties  he  has  to  this  particular  form 
of  service.  That  conviction,  if  it  once  dominates  the  mind  of 
a  person  in  any  walk  of  life,  does  much  to  ennoble  and  beautify 
even  work  which  would  otherwise  be  distasteful;  but  I  know 


36  The  Teacher  and  Ms  Assistants. 

no  one  calling  in  which  the  presence  of  that  conviction  is  more 
necessary,  or  its  absence  more  disheartening,  than  that  of  a 
schoolmaster.  Teaching  is  the  noblest  of  all  professions,  but  it 
is  the  sorriest  of  trades;  and  nobody  can  hope  to  succeed 
in  it  who  does  not  throw  his  whole  heart  into  it,  and  who 
does  not  find  a  positive  pleasure  as  he  watches  the  quickened 
attention  and  heightened  color  of  a  little  child  as  he  finds 
a  new  truth  dawning  upon  him,  or  as  some  latent  power  is 
called  forth.  There  is  no  calling  more  delightful  to  those  who 
like  it;  none  which  seems  such  poor  drudgery  to  those  who 
enter  upon  it  reluctantly  or  merely  as  a  means  of  getting  a 
living.  He  who  takes  his  work  as  a  dose  is  likely  to  find  it 
nauseous.  "  The  good  schoolmaster,"  says  Fuller,  "minces 
his  precepts  for  children  to  swallow,  hanging  clogs  on  the 
nimbleness  of  his  own  soul,  that  his  scholars  may  go  along 
with  him."  This  means  that  he  has  enough  of  imaginative 
sympathy  to  project  his  own  mind,  so  to  speak,  into  that  of  his 
pupil,  to  understand  what  is  going  on  there,  and  to  think  not 
only  of  how  his  lesson  is  being  imparted,  but  also  of  how  it  is 
being  received.  But  nobody  can  do  this  who  is  not  fond  of  his 
work.  That  which  we  know  and  care  about  we  may  soon 
learn  to  impart;  that  which  we  know  and  do  not  care  about  we 
soon  cease  to  know  at  all,  to  any  practical  purpose. 
It  is  obvious  that  in  selecting  assistants  you  should  seek  to 

.    .       .         find  as  far  as  possible  those  who  possess  the  quali- 
Assistants.  ... 

fications  you  would  most  desire  in  yourselves. 

It  is  also  clear  as  the  result  of  modern  experience  that  the 
head  teacher  in  every  school  ought  to  be  responsible  for  the 
choice  of  each  of  his  own  assistants.  But  having  secured  him, 
what  is  the  best  use  to  make  of  him?  There  are  two  opposite 
views  on  this  point.  There  is  one  which  gives  the  assistant  the 
care  of  the  whole  work  of  a  class,  and  another  which  makes 
him  the  teacher  of  a  particular  subject  and  sends  him  from 
class  to  class  to  give  lessons  on  it.  Both  systems  may  be  seen 
in  operation  in  very  good  schools,  and  it  would  be  hard  to  say 
that  all  the  truth  lies  necessarily  on  one  side,  or  that  one  mode 


The  Work  of  Assistants.  37 

of  dividing  the  labor  is  necessarily  and  always  right.    It  is  here 
as  in  governments: 

That  which  is  best  administered  is  best. 

One  system  gives  scope  for  special  ability,  and  assigns  to 
each  the  work  for  which  he  is  presumably  fittest.  But  the  dis- 
advantages are  serious.  In  the  first  place,  the  teacher  of  one 
subject  only — the  French  or  Arithmetic  master— is  generally 
without  influence.  When  a  man  confines  himself  to  one  sub- 
ject he  is  apt  to  see  his  one  subject  in  a  false  light,  and  to  lose 
sight  of  its  relation  to  the  general  culture  of  the  pupil.  Per- 
haps too  if  he  has  a  stronger  will  than  his  colleagues  he  demands 
proficiency  in  his  one  subject  at  the  expense  of  others.  The 
class  system  avoids  this  particular  danger,  but  it  has  the  ob- 
vious disadvantage  of  setting  each  of  your  assistants  to  teach 
several  subjects,  of  which  it  may  fairly  be  assumed  he  can 
teach  some  much  better  than  others.  There  must  be  a  com- 
promise between  these  two  systems.  I  believe  that  which  in  the 
long-run  secures  best  the  unity  and  coherence  of  the  school 
work  is  to  assign  to  an  assistant  a  definite  portion  of  responsi- 
bility, not  to  move  him  about  from  place  to  place,  but  to  attach 
him  to  a  class  for  a  sufficient  time  to  make  it  clear  that  the  pro- 
gress or  backwardness  of  the  class  is  to  be  distinctly  attributed 
to  him.  Each  assistant  should  be  clearly  identified  with  the 
work  of  particular  scholars  and  mainly  responsible  for  it.  On 
the  whole,  a  distribution  of  assistants  among  classes  effects  this 
purpose  better  than  their  distribution  among  subjects.  Experi- 
ence is  not  favorable  to  the  plan  of  making  one  teacher  take 
the  exclusive  charge  of  arithmetic,  another  of  writing,  and 
another  of  literature.  The  class  system  calls  out  more  varied 
power,  prevents  the  mind  of  the  teacher  from  always  running 
in  the  same  groove,  and  is  more  interesting  to  himself.  He 
wants  a  change  of  occupation  and  of  subject  as  much  as  his 
pupils.  At  the  same  time,  while  this  seems  to  be  the  best  gen- 
eral rule,  it  is  clearly  important  to  utilize  any  special  gift  pos- 
sessed by  an  assistant  and  to  find  out  in  the  case  of  every  one 


38  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

such  assistant  what  is  the  subject  he  can  teach  best,  or  in  what 
work  he  feels  most  interest.  If  over  and  above  his  proper  and 
ordinary  work  in  his  class,  an  assistant  who  is  fond  of  drawing, 
or  who  sings  well,  or  who  is  skilful  in  the  book-keeping  and 
supervision  of  registers,  has  appropriate  special  work  assigned 
to  him, — work  which  belongs  rather  to  the  whole  school  than 
to  the  class, — such  work  will  be  a  clear  gain,  not  only  to  the 
school,  which  will  thus  turn  all  its  best  resources  to  account, 
but  also  to  the  assistant  himself,  whose  interest  in  the  prosperity 
of  the  school  as  a  whole  will  thus  be  much  augmented. 

So  we  may  conclude  from  these  considerations  that  on 
the  whole  the  class-master  plan  should  prevail  in  the  lower 
classes,  and  the  plan  of  employing  specialists  in  the  higher, 
but  that  the  evils  of  too  exclusive  a  dependence  upon  either 
plan  should  be  carefully  guarded  against  throughout  the 
school. 

Another  form  of  compromise  between  the  two  systems  suc- 
ceeds well  in  some  good  schools.  To  each  class  of  from  30  to 
40  pupils  two  teachers  are  attached — a  senior  and  a  junior. 
The  class  is  divided  into  two  for  arithmetic,  languages,  reading, 
and  a  good  deal  of  viva-wee  questioning,  and  each  teacher  is 
responsible  for  his  own  section.  For  all  lecture  lessons  the 
sections  are  thrown  together  and  the  class  is  one.  The  most 
important  lectures  are  given  by  the  senior  teacher,  others  by 
the  junior;  but  both  teachers  are  present  at  all  lectures,  and 
responsible  for  seeing  that  their  respective  sections  understand 
and  profit  by  them.  This  plan  has  the  further  advantage  of 
putting  a  younger  teacher  under  the  supervision  and  practical 
training  of  an  elder;  and  also  of  relieving  the  younger  teacher 
occasionally  for  his  own  studies  or  for  higher  lectures. 

But  though  it  is  well  to  confide  responsibility  to  assistants, 
Responsl-  it  is  essential  to  watch  its  exercise  carefully.  The 
confided  *to  principal  teacher  should  hold  frequent  periodical 
Assistants,  examinations  to  see  what  progress  is  being  made, 
should  himself  stand  by  and  listen  to  the  teaching,  should 
make  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  methods  em- 


Limits  to  their  Responsibility.  39 

ployed  by  his  assistant,  and  with  the  sort  of  influence  he  exerts. 
I  once  knew  a  large  private  school  in  which  this  was  done  by 
the  cunning  device  of  letting  a  small  pane  of  glass  into  the 
wall  of  each  class-room;  and  the  principal  prided  himself  on 
being  able  to  pervade  the  whole  establishment  at  all  times,  and 
peep  in  when  it  was  least  suspected.  But  this  is  not  what  I 
recommend.  It  is  not  espionage,  for  this  always  destroys  the 
self-respect  of  those  who  are  subject  to  it.  Nor  is  it  the  half- 
apologetic  way  which  some  head-masters  have  of  coming  into 
the  class  of  an  assistant  with  some  pretext,  as  if  they  felt  they 
were  intruding.  It  is  the  frank  recognition  of  such  oversight 
as  one  of  the  conditions  under  which  the  work  is  to  be  done, 
and  under  which  alone  responsibility  can  be  prop-  t  concen. 
erly  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the  principal,  tratedinthe 
It  is  indispensable  that  there  should  be  unity  in 
a  school,  that  the  plans  and  methods  in  use  in  the  various 
classes  should  harmonize  and  be  mutually  helpful.  And  to 
this  end  the  occasional  presence  of  the  principal  in  the  lower 
classes  should  be  part  of  the  recognized  order  of  the  school. 
He  will  not  interrupt  or  criticise  of  course  in  the  presence  of 
the  scholars.  He  will  in  their  eyes  rather  appear  as  in  friendly 
co-operation  with  the  assistant  than  as  a  critic.  But  he  will 
criticise  nevertheless.  He  will  carefully  note  mistakes,  negli- 
gences, and  ignorances;  and  make  them  the  subject  of  private 
counsel  to  the  assistants  afterwards. 

In  many  large  schools,  it  is  the  custom  to  have  every  week  a 
short  conference  among  the  teachers,  in  which  school 
they  and  the  head-master  compare  notes  and  con-  Councils, 
suit  together  about  the  work  and  about  the  pupils.  Whether 
the  number  be  small  or  great,  some  such  comparison  of  ex- 
perience is  absolutely  necessary  if  the  school  is  to  be  at  unity 
with  itself,  and  if  its  parts  are  to  fit  together.  I  once  visited  an 
Endowed  Grammar  School,  in  which  the  head-master  and  the 
usher,  both  clergymen,  both  on  the  Foundation,  both  sepa- 
rately appointed,  carried  on  their  duties  in  separate  rooms. 
They  had  not  spoken  to  each  other  for  fifteen  years.  The 


40  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 


head-master  explained  to  me  that  the  low  state  of  his  own  de- 
partment was  attributable  to  the  worthless  character  of  the 
preparation  obtained  in  the  usher's  class;  and  the  usher,  with 
equal  frankness,  told  me  that  it  was  of  no  use  to  take  any  pains 
with  boys  who  were  to  come  under  so  foolish  a  regime  as  that 
of  the  Upper  Department.  These  cases  it  may  be  hoped  are 
rare,  but  instances  of  practical  isolation,  and  want  of  harmony 
in  the  work  of  classes,  are  not  rare,  and  I  hold  it  to  be  indis- 
pensable that  the  principal  of  a  school  should  know  everything 
that  is  going  on  in  it;  and  should  habitually  test  and  observe 
the  work  of  his  subordinates,  not  because  he  suspects  them, 
but  because  thorough  and  intelligent  co-operation  towards  a 
common  end  is  impossible  without  it. 

No  general  rule  can  be  laid  down  about  the  age  of  assistants; 
Youthful  the  whole  question  is  a  personal  one,  to  be  settled 
assistants.  -fay  tne  individual  characteristics  of  the  people 
within  your  reach,  and  not  by  any  fixed  rules.  But  I  may 
confess  to  a  strong  sense  of  the  services  which  may  often  be 
rendered  by  young  teachers  as  assistants.  Much  experience  in 
elementary  schools  of  the  working  of  the  pupil-teacher  system 
has  not  led  me,  as  it  appears  to  have  led  many  others,  to  dis- 
trust that  system,  and  to  wish  to  see  it  universally  superseded 
by  an  organization  dependent  on  adult  teachers  alone.  You 
know  that  by  the  regulations  of  the  Council  Office,  one  grown- 
up assistant  master  or  mistress  is  allowed  to  count  as  two  pupil- 
teachers  in  assessing  the  sufficiency  of  the  staff.  They  are 
about  equal  to  one  such  assistant  in  point  of  cost,  but  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  in  a  great  many  cases  the  two  pupil- 
teachers  do  more  work  than  one  assistant.  And  I  have  no 
doubt  that  in  secondary  schools  the  system  of  student-teachers 
might  often  be  adopted  with  much  advantage,  and  that  you 
may  get  very  valuable  work  out  of  young  people  of  seventeen 
or  eighteen  who  are  drawn  to  the  profession  by  choice  and 
aptitude  and  who  wish  to  become  trained  for  it.  What  they 
lack  in  maturity  and  experience  they  often  make  up  in  enthu- 
siasm, in  freshness  of  mind,  and  in  tractability.  You  can  easily 


Youthful  Assistants.  41 

direct  them,  and  mould  their  work  so  as  to  fit  your  own  plans. 
Only  it  is  worth  while  to  bear  in  mind  two  or  three  conditions. 
They  should  not  at  first  be  put  to  the  care  of  the  youngest 
children.  It  is  a  very  common  fault  to  suppose  that  your 
rawest  and  least-trained  teacher  should  be  put  to  your  lowest 
class,  whereas  it  is  in  the  lowest  class  that  the  highest  pro- 
fessional skill  is  often  wanted.  To  awaken  the  interest  and 
intelligence  of  very  young  children  is  often  a  much  harder  task 
than  to  direct  the  work  of  elders.  The  easiest  part  of  the  work 
of  a  school  is  the  supervision  of  the  more  mechanical  lessons, 
such  as  reading  and  writing,  or  the  correction  of  sums  and  of 
home  exercises  in  the  middle  classes  of  a  school,  where  scholars 
may  be  presumed  to  have  already  been  drilled  into  good  habits 
of  work.  And  this  therefore  is  the  department  of  duty  which 
should  first  be  confided  to  a  young  teacher.  The  function 
which  is  known  in  the  French  schools  as  that  of  repetiteur,  who 
has  charge  of  the  minor  and  more  mechanical  parts  of  the 
teaching,  is  the  proper  function  of  such  a  teacher,  not  the  sole 
charge  of  any  one  department  of  a  school.  Then  by  degrees 
he  may  be  called  upon  to  give  a  lesson  perhaps  on  some  rule 
of  arithmetic  in  the  presence  of  a  class,  and  afterwards  to  teach 
in  succession  other  subjects  properly  graduated  in  difficulty. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  exact  so  much  as  is  often  demanded  from 
young  teachers.  While  in  the  stage  of  probation  or  partial 
studentship  they  should  not  give  more  than  half  the  day  to 
teaching,  and  reserve  the  rest  for  their  own  studies.  If  we  ex- 
pect a  young  assistant  to  spend  the  whole  of  the  ordinary 
school-hours  in  charge  of  young  children,  and  to  pursue  his 
own  studies  when  school  is  over,  we  expect  what  is  unreason- 
able, and  we  go  far  to  disgust  him  and  make  him  feel  the  task 
to  be  drudgery.  On  the  other  hand,  an  alternation  of  teaching 
and  learning,  of  obeying  and  governing,  is  very  pleasant  to  an 
active  mind;  and  I  think  by  trying  the  experiment  of  what 
may  be  called  the  "  half-time  system"  the  principal  of  a  school 
may  often  get  better,  fresher  work — work  which,  he  can  more 
completely  control  and  bring  into  harmony  with  his  own  views 


42  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

and  plans — out  of  student-teachers  than  out  of  adult  ushers  of 
the  ordinary  type. 

There  is  great  advantage,  whenever  possible,  in  securing 
Student-  assistants  of  your  own  training,  those  whom  you 
teachers.  have  manufactured  on  the  premises,  so  to  speak. 
And  the  system  of  student-teachers  lends  itself  well  to  the 
adoption  of  this  course.  But  we  must  not  overlook  the  de- 
merits and  dangers  of  this  system  on  the  other  hand.  A  youth 
selected  from  among  your  most  promising  pupils,  and  trained 
under  your  own  eye  with  a  view  to  taking  office  as  an  assistant, 
may  indeed  be  expected  to  be  familiar  with  your  own  methods 
and  in  sympathy  with  your  aims.  But  it  is  essential  that  in  the 
interval  between  the  time  of  quasi-apprenticeship  and  that  in 
which  he  takes  permanent  office  as  assistant  he  should  go  out 
either  to  the  University  or  to  some  other  school  for  that  impor- 
tant part  of  his  education  which  you  cannot  give  him.  In  the 
elementary  schools  young  people  are  chosen  early  as  pupil- 
teachers,  go  out  at  eighteen  for  two  years  to  a  training  college, 
and  return  to  an  elementary  school  as  assistants  before  they  are 
qualified  to  take  the  sole  charge  of  schools.  In  theory  this  is  un- 
exceptionable. And  if  at  the  training  colleges  they  were  enabled 
to  obtain  a  broader  view  of  their  profession  and  of  life,  little 
more  could  be  desired.  Unfortunately,  however,  at  the  Normal 
College  they  are  associated  only  with  others  who  have  had  pre- 
cisely the  same  training,  who  come  from  the  same  social  class, 
and  have  been  subject  to  the  same  early  disadvantages.  They 
are  therefore  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  their  career 
always  moving  in  the  same  rut,  always  bounded  by  the  tra- 
ditions and  the  experience  of  the  elementary  school,  and  they 
know  too  little  of  the  outer  world,  or  of  what  in  other  pro- 
fessions passes  for  a  liberal  education.  Hence  the  narrower 
views  and  the  more  obvious  faults  which  often  characterize 
the  elementary  teacher.  For  a  successful  teacher  of  a  higher 
school  we  may  indeed  desire  in  some  cases  the  early  training 
analogous  to  pxipil-teachership;  and  some  special  preparation, 
either  as  assistant  or  otherwise,  in  the  duties  of  a  schoolmaster. 


TJie  Teacher's  Aims.  43 

But  it  is  important  that  a  substantial  part  of  his  training,  at 
any  rate,  should  be  obtained  in  other  places  than  the  school  in 
which  he  intends  ultimately  to  teach;  and  among  persons  who 
are  not  intending  to  follow  the  same  profession  as  himself. 

And  for  the  teacher  and  for  all  his  assistants,  the  one  thing 
needful  is  a  high  aim,  and  a  strong  faith  in  the  The  teacher's 
infinite  possibilities  which  lie  hidden  in  the  nature  aims- 
of  a  young  child.  One  hears  much  rhetoric  and  nonsense  on 
this  subject.  The  schoolmaster  is  often  addressed  by  enthusi- 
asts as  if  be  were  more  important  to  the  body  politic  than 
soldier  and  statesman,  poet  and  student  all  put  together;  and  a 
modest  man  rebels,  and  rightly  rebels,  against  this  exaggera- 
tion, and  is  fain  to  take  refuge  in  a  mean  view  of  his  office. 
But  after  all,  we  must  never  forget  that  those  who  magnify 
your  office  in  never  so  bad  taste  are  substantially  right.  And 
it  is  only  an  elevated  ideal  of  your  profession  which  will  ever  en- 
able you  to  contend  against  its  inevitable  discouragements — the 
weary  repetitions,  the  dulness  of  some,  the  wilfulness  of  others, 
the  low  aims  of  many  parents,  the  exactions  of  governors  and 
of  public  bodies,  the  ungenerous  criticism,  the  false  standards 
of  estimation  which  may  be  applied  to  your  work.  What  is 
to  sustain  you  in  these  circumstances,  in  places  remote  from 
friends,  or  in  the  midst  of  uncongenial  surroundings?  Noth- 
ing, except  the  faith  which  removes  mountains,  the  strong  con- 
viction that  your  work  after  all,  if  honestly  and  skilfully  done, 
is  some  of  the  most  fruitful  and  precious  work  in  the  world. 
The  greatest  of  all  teachers,  in  describing  his  own  mission,  once 
said,  "  I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they 
might  have  it  more  abundantly."  And  may  we  not  without 
irreverence  say  that  this  is,  in  a  humble  and  far-off  way,  the 
aim  of  every  true  teacher  in  the  world?  He  wants  to  help  his 
pupil  to  live  a  fuller,  a  richer,  a  more  interesting  and  a  more 
useful  life1.  He  wants  so  to  train  the  scholar  that  no  one  of  his 

1  "  Qu'on  destine  mon  616ve  ft  I'6p6e,  d.  1'eglise,  au  barreau  que  n'irn- 
porte !  avant  la  vocation  des  parents,  la  nature  1'appelle  a  la  vie  hu- 
matne.  Vivre  est  le  metier  que  je  lui  veux  apprendre."  —  ROUSSEAU. 


44  The  Teacher  and  his  Assistants. 

intellectual  or  moral  resources  shall  be  wasted.  He  looks  on 
the  complex  organization  of  a  young  child,  and  he  seeks  to 
bring  all  his  faculties,  not  merely  his  memory  and  his  capacity 
for  obedience,  but  also  his  intelligence,  his  acquisitiveness,  his 
imagination,  his  taste,  his  love  of  action,  his  love  of  truth,  into 
the  fullest  vitality; 

"  That  mind  and  soul  according  well 
May  make  one  music." 

No  meaner  ideal  than  this  ought  to  satisfy  even  the  humblest 
who  enters  the  teacher's  profession. 

From  considerations  so  high  and  far-reaching  does  it  seem 
to  you  a  rather  steep  descent  to  come  down  to  the  details  of 
school  organization,  to  books  and  methods,  to  maps  and  time- 
tables? I  hope  not,  for  it  is  only  in  the  light  of  large  princi- 
ples that  little  things  can  be  seen  in  their  true  significance;  and 
a  great  aim  is  often  the  stimulus  to  exertions  which  were  other- 
wise petty  and  wearisome. 


The  Business  of  a  School.  45 


II.    THE  SCHOOL:    ITS  AIMS  AND 
ORGANIZATION. 

WE  are  to  consider  now  the  nature  and  functions  of  a  School 
generally.  The  Art  of  Teaching,  or  Didactics  as  The  business 
we  may  for  convenience  call  it,  falls  under  two  of  a  School, 
heads,  general  and  special.  And  before  seeking  to  investigate 
the  several  subjects  usually  included  in  a  school  course,  one  by 
one,  and  the  methods  appropriate  to  each,  it  seems  right  to 
take  a  me  d' ensemble  of  the  whole  work  of  a  School,  and  to  ask 
ourselves  what  it  ought  to  aim  at,  and  what  it  cannot  do.  We 
shall  not  gain  much  from  any  preliminary  speculation  as  to 
what  Education  is.  Nothing  is  more  easy  than  to  define  it  as 
the  awakening  and  training  of  faculty,  the  co-ordinate  develop- 
ment of  all  the  powers  both  passive  and  active  of  the  human 
soul,  the  complete  preparation  for  the  business  of  life.  In  the 
view  of  many  who  have  written  on  this  subject  there  is  no  one 
element  of  perfectibility  in  the  human  character,  no  one  attri- 
bute, physical,  intellectual,  or  spiritual,  which  it  is  not  the  duty 
of  a  teacher  to  have  in  mind,  and  which  does  not  form  part  of 
the  business  of  education.  We  may  leave  for  the  present  all 
such  speculations.  They  are  unquestionably  true;  because  all 
the  experience  of  life  is  a  training,  and  men  are  educated  from 
infancy  to  the  grave,  by  all  the  sights  and  sounds,  the  joys  and 
sorrows  which  they  encounter,  by  the  character  and  behavior  of 
their  friends,  the  nature  of  their  surroundings,  and  by  the  books 
they  read .  But  we  have  to  ask  which  and  how  many  of  these  for- 
mative influences  are  within  the  control  of  professional  teachers. 
The  home  and  the  family  influence  do  much,  and  these  have 
to  be  presupposed.  The  out-door  life,  and  the  contact  with  its 


46       The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

facts  and  experience,  will  do  still  more;  and  this  also  must  be 
The  limits  of  taken  into  account.  The  school  conies  in  between 
its  work.  these,  and  seeks  to  control  some  of  the  forces 
which  act  on  the  young  life  from  7  years  old  to  15  or  18; 
and  for  a  very  limited  number  of  the  hours  of  each  day.  It  is 
for  a  school  to  supplement  other  means  of  training,  not  to  super- 
sede them;  to  deal  with  a  part  and  not  with  the  whole  even  of 
youthful  life.  It  can  never  safely  seek  to  relieve  parents  of 
their  own  special  moral  responsibilities;  or  to  find  for  the  child 
fit  surroundings  in  the  home  or  in  the  world.  The  teacher 
may  properly  set  before  himself  the  ideal  perfection  of  a  life. 
He  will  do  well  to  study  Herbert  Spencer's  description  of  the 
purpose  of  Education  as  a  means  of  forming  the  parent,  the 
worker,  the  thinker,  the  subject,  and  the  citizen.  But  the 
practical  question  for  him  is  what  portion  of  the  vast  and  intri- 
cate work  of  attaining  such  perfection  is  to  be  done  in  a  school, 
and  under  the  special  limitations  and  conditions  to  which  a 
professional  teacher  is  subject.  After  all,  he  is  not  and  cannot 
be  to  his  pupil  in  the  place  of  the  parent,  the  employer,  the 
priest,  the  civil  ruler,  or  the  writer  of  books,  and  all  these  have 
in  their  own  way  educative  functions  not  inferior  to  his.  It  is 
well  also  to  remember  that  some  of  the  most  precious  teaching 
of  life  comes  to  us  obiter,  and  without  special  provision  or  ar- 
rangement, while  other  knowledge  can  hardly  come  to  us  at  all 
except  we  get  it  at  school.  We  cannot  therefore  measure  the 
claim  of  a  given  kind  of  knowledge  to  become  a  part  of  a 
school  course,  by  considering  merely  its  worth  per  se.  We 
must  also  consider  whether  it  is  a  kind  of  knowledge  which  is 
capable  of  being  formulated  into  lessons  and  imparted  by  a 
teacher.  For  otherwise,  however  valuable  it  may  be,  it  is  for 
the  purpose  now  in  view  no  concern  of  ours. 

Now  a  school  can  operate  on  the  education  of  a  scholar  in 
Its  true  func-  *wo  ways :  (1)  by  indiscipline  and  indirect  training, 
tions.  an(j  (g)  by  positive  instruction.  Of  discipline  in 

so  far  as  it  is  moral  and  affects  the  growth  of  character,  we 
have  to  speak  hereafter.  But  of  instruction,  and  the  special 


Five  Forms  of  School-instruction.  47 

intellectual  and  practical  discipline  which  may  be  got  by  means 
of  definite  lessons,  we  may  usefully  take  a  brief  preliminary 
view  now. 

I  suppose  that  if  we  seek  to  classify  the  objects  of  instruction 
(lehr-stoff),  so  far  as  they  lie  within  the  purview  of  a  school- 
teacher, they  are  these: 

(1)  The  attainment  of  certain  manual  and  mechanical  arts, 
e.g.  those  of  reading,  writing,  drawing,  and  music.    „.      ,        , 
With  these  you  try  to  train  the  senses,  and  to  de-   ments  of  in- 
velop  a  certain  handiness  and  readiness  in  the   s 

use  of  physical  powers,  and  in  the  solution  of  some  of  the  prac- 
tical problems  of  life. 

(2)  The  impartation  of  certain  useful  facts — of  the  kind  of 
information  which  is  needed  in  the  intercourse  of  life,  and  of 
which  it  is  inconvenient,  and  a  little  disgraceful,  to  be  ignorant. 
Such  are  the  facts  of  geography,  and  history,  and  a  good  deal 
of  miscellaneous  information  about  common  things,  and  about 
the  world  in  which  we  live.    It  may  be  safely  said  that  quite 
apart  from  all  consideration  of  the  intellectual  processes  by 
which  knowledge  of  these  facts  finds  entrance  into  the  mind, 
and  of  the  way  in  which  it  is  systematized  or  made  to  serve  an 
intellectual  purpose,  such  facts  are  in  themselves  useful,  and 
ought  to  be  taught. 

(3)  Language,  including  the  vocabulary,  grammar  and  litera- 
ture of  our  own  and  other  tongues;  and  all  exercises  in  the 
meaning,  history  and  right  use  of  words. 

(4)  Pure  Science,  including  Arithmetic,   Mathematics  and 
other  studies  of  a  deductive  character,  specially  intended  to 
cultivate  the  logical  faculty. 

(5)  Applied   Science,   including  Natural  History,   Physics, 
Chemistry,  and  the  Inductive  Sciences  generally. 

Now  under  these  five  heads  may  be  included  nearly  all  the 
secular  teaching  of  a  school;  and  I  think  we  may   ,_.   . 
roughly  say  that,  if  you  take  the  whole  period  of   tive  import- 
a  child's  school  life,  supposing  it  to  be  prolonged   a 
to  the  age  of  18,  the  time  would  not  be  ill-divided  if  about  one- 


48       The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

fifth  of  it  were  given  to  each.  All  five  are  indispensable.  But 
the  proportions  of  time  which  you  give  to  them  respectively 
will  vary  much  according  to  the  stage  of  his  career  which  the 
child  has  reached.  At  first,  the  first,  second  and  third  will  oc- 
cupy the  whole  time.  As  the  arts  of  Reading  and  Writing  are 
acquired,  i.e.  after  the  age  of  8  or  9,  practice  in  them  will  be- 
come less  and  less  important;  and  in  a  year  or  two  later,  exer- 
cises in  what  may  be  called  Art  will  only  be  interspersed  among 
the  lessons  of  the  school  as  reliefs  from  intellectual  labor.  Thus 
more  time  will  become  available  for  the  subjects  of  the  second, 
third,  fourth  and  fifth  groups.  And  of  these  it  should  always  be 
remembered,  that  the  second  is  of  the  smallest  value  education- 
ally, and  that  in  just  the  proportion  in  which  you  deal  wisely 
and  successfully  with  the  other  branches,  the  acquisition  of  in- 
formation about  history,  geography  and  common  things  may 
be  safely  left  to  the  private  reading,  and  intelligent  observation, 
for  which  your  purely  disciplinal  studies  will  have  created  an 
appetite.  Moreover  these  classes  of  knowledge  are  not  quite 
so  sharply  divided  in  fact  as  they  seem  to  be  in  a  theoretical 
scheme.  Much  depends  on  the  mode  of  their  treatment.  For 
instance,  much  of  the  work  done  under  the  name  of  arithmetic 
is  often  taught  more  in  the  nature  of  a  knack,  or  mechanical 
art,  than  as  a  mental  discipline.  Grammar  too,  considered  as 
the  art  of  correct  speaking,  is  matter  of  imitation  rather  than 
knowledge.  And  Physical  Geography  may  easily,  if  well 
taught,  become  lifted  to  the  rank  of  a  science,  and  fall  under 
the  fifth  rather  than  the  third  head.  On  the  whole,  the 
staple  of  school  discipline  and  instruction  will  be  found  in 
the  third,  fourth  and  fifth  groups,  and  you  cannot  go  far 
wrong  in  allotting  the  best  of  the  time,  in  the  case  of  older 
pupils,  in  about  equal  proportions  to  these  three  departments 
of  intellectual  effort.  We  shall  have  to  consider  more  fully 
hereafter  the  reasons  which  justify  the  teaching  of  each  of  these 
subjects.  At  present,  it  may  suffice  to  say  that  you  teach  lan- 
guage in  order  to  enlarge  a  learner's  vocabulary,  to  give  him 
precision  in  the  use  of  words,  and  a  greater  command  over  the 


The   Co-ordination  of  Studies.  49 

resources  of  speech  considered  as  an  instrument  of  thought. 
And  an  ancient  language  which  is  fully  inflected,  a  modern  lan- 
guage which  we  learn  for  purposes  of  conversation  mainly,  and 
our  own  vernacular  speech,  all  in  their  several  ways  conduce  to 
the  same  end,  though  each  has  processes  peculiar  to  itself.  And 
we  teach  besides  arithmetic  some  branch  of  mathematical  or 
deductive  science,  because  this  furnishes  the  best  training  in 
practical  logic,  in  the  art  of  deducing  right  inferences  from 
general  or  admitted  truths.  And  as  to  the  sciences  which  are 
not  to  be  investigated  deductively,  but  depend  on  experience, 
observation,  and  a  generalization  from  a  multitude  of  pheno- 
mena, we  teach  them  not  only  because  they  make  the  student 
acquainted  with  the  beauty  and  the  order  of  the  physical  world, 
but  because  the  mode  of  attaining  truth  in  these  matters  corre- 
sponds more  nearly  than  any  other  to  the  mode  by  which  right 
general  opinions  are  formed  about  all  the  principal  subjects 
which  for  the  purposes  of  practical  life  it  behooves  us  to  know. 
You  can  hardly  conceive  a  completely  educated  man  whose 
faculties  have  not  been  trained  in  each  of  these  Their  co-ordi- 
ways.  But  while  this  threefold  division  of  studies  nation- 
may  always  be  held  in  view,  it  does  not  follow  that  every  one 
of  them  should  be  pursued  uniformly  and  co-ordinately  all 
through  a  scholar's  course.  When  elements  have  been  learned 
and  the  scholar  has  got  to  the  age  of  13  or  14,  you  will  do  well 
often  in  a  given  term  or  half-year  to  concentrate  special  atten- 
tion on  two  or  three  subjects,  and  for  a  while  to  do  little  more 
with  some  others  than  take  measures  for  keeping  up  what  has 
already  been  gained.  It  is  unsafe  to  specialize  too  soon,  till  a 
good  general  foundation  has  been  laid  for  acquirement  in  all 
departments;  but  when  this  foundation  has  been  secured,  it  is 
u  great  part  of  education,  especially  in  the  higher  classes,  to 
show  what  may  be  done  now  and  then  by  a  resolute  and  steady 
devotion  to  a  particular  department  of  work.  It  is  only  by  doing 
so  occasionally,  and,  in  doing  this,  by  sacrificing  for  a  time  the 
theory  of  proportion  which  ought  always  to  prevail  in  your 
scheme  of  instruction  considered  as  a  whole,  that  you  will  give 
4 


50      The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

to  your  elder  pupils  a  due  sense  of  their  own  power,  and  pre- 
pare them  for  that  duty  which  is  so  often  needed  in  after-life — 
the  duty  of  bringing  the  whole  faculty,  and  effort  and  enthu- 
siasm, to  bear  on  one  subject  at  a  time.  Do  not  be  afraid  there- 
fore of  giving  an  extra  proportion  of  time  to  Latin  or  to  Litera- 
ture, or  to  Natural  Science,  when  you  find  the  pupils  have  just 
caught  the  spirit  of  the  work  and  are  prepared  to  do  it  unusu- 
ally well.  For  though  relatively  to  the  particular  month  or 
term  the  distribution  of  time  may  seem  inequitable,  it  is  not  so 
relatively  to  the  whole  period  of  the  school  life. 

We  have,  in  fact,  to  keep  in  view  the  general  principle  that 
Thethr  every  school  ought  to  provide  in  its  own  way  and 

kinds  of  measure,  instruction  and  training  of  several  differ- 

ent kinds— the  practical  arts,  so  that  the  pupil 
learns  to  do  something,  as  read,  write  or  draw;  the  real  or  spe- 
cific teaching,  so  that  the  pupil  is  made  to  know  something  of 
the  facts  and  phenomena  round  him;  the  disciplinal  or  intellec- 
tual exercise,  whereby  he  is  helped  to  think  and  observe  and 
reason;  and  the  moral  training,  whereby  he  is  made  to  feel 
rightly,  to  be  affected  by  a  right  ambition,  and  by  a  sense  of 
duty.  But  in  applying  this  general  view  to  different  schools 
we  must  make  great  modifications.  Whether  a  school  is  in- 
tended for  girls  or  for  boys,  for  young  children  or  elder,  for 
boarders  or  for  day  scholars,  must  be  first  considered  before  we 
determine  its  curriculum.  And  after  all,  the  most  important 
consideration  which  will  differentiate  the  character  of  various 
schools,  is  the  length  of  time  which  pupils  are  likely  to 
spend  in  them.  Roughly  we  may  say  that  a  Primary  School 
is  one  the  majority  of  whose  scholars  leave  at  the  age  of  14;  a 
Secondary  School,  one  in  which  they  remain  till  16;  and  a  High 
School,  one  which  may  hope  to  retain  them  till  18  or  19,  and 
to  send  them  direct  to  the  Universities.  The  problem  may  be 
further  modified  by  special  professional  aims  and  by  the  neces- 
sary differences  in  the  training  of  boys  anil  girls,  especially  in 
relation  to  the  side  of  art  culture;  but  mainly  we  may  keep 
these  three  divisions  in  view. 


Tie  Three  Kinds  of  School.  51 

Now  the  work  of  a  Primary  school  begins  earlier,  and  is 
much  more  usually  founded  on  infant-school  dis-  1  _, 
cipline  than  the  work  of  either  of  the  other  two.  Primary 
From  5  years  old  to  7,  the  playful  kindly  discipline 
of  the  Kindergarten  may  be  made  to  alternate  with  short  les- 
sons on  reading,  writing,  drawing  and  counting,  and  with 
manual  and  singing  exercises.  And  during  the  age  from  7  to 
14  it  is  not  too  much  to  expect  that  the  child  of  the  poor  man 
who  is  to  earn  his  living  after  that  age  shall  learn  to  read  with 
intelligence,  to  write  and  express  himself  well,  to  know  some- 
thing of  the  structure  of  his  own  language,  and  to  understand 
the  meanings  of  words.  The  purely  logical  part  of  his  training 
will  be  gained  by  instruction  in  the  principles  and  the  practice 
of  arithmetic,  and  the  elements  of  geometry;  his  knowledge  of 
facts  will  be  mainly  that  of  geography  and  of  history;  the  sci- 
entific-side of  his  training  will  be  obtained  through  the  elemen- 
tary study  of  mechanics  or  chemistry,  or  physiology,  Erdkunde 
or  Naturkunde,  and  the  aesthetic  side  by  vocal  music  and  draw- 
ing, and  the  learning  of  poetry.  And  if  to  this  can  be  added 
sufficient  instruction  in  the  elements  of  any  foreign  grammar, 
say  French,  to  enable  the  pupil  to  pursue  the  study  of  another 
language  than  his  own,  by  his  own  efforts  after  leaving  school, 
the  primaiy  school  may  be  considered  to  have  done  its  work, 
and  to  have  given  him,  relatively  to  the  limited  time  in  which 
he  has  been  under  instruction,  a  complete,  coherent,  and  self- 
consistent  course. 

The  curriculum  of  the  Secondary  School,  which  ex  liypotJiesi 
is  to  be  carried  on  at  least  to  the  age  of  16,  should  3  ,^e 
from  the  first  aim  at  all  that  is  attained  in  the  pri-   Secondary 
mary ,  with  some  additions.     It  may  reasonably  in- 
clude the  elements  of  two  languages  other  than  the  pupil's  own, 
of  which  it  is  expedient  that  one  should  be  Latin  and  the  other 
French  or  German.     It  should  on  the  side  of  pure  science  be 
carried  to  algebra  and  geometry;   and  in  the  department  of 
applied  science  should  include  at  least  one  such  subject  as 
chemistry,  physics  or  astronomy  rather  fully  treated.     On  the 


52       The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

side  of  the  humanities  it  should  recognize  the  study  of  a  few 
literary  masterpieces,  and  some  knowledge  of  the  history  of 
thought  as  well  as  of  events.  But  it  should  not,  in  my  opinion, 
attempt  to  include  Greek,  nor  any  exercise  in  Latin  versifica- 
tion or  composition;  simply  because  it  is  not  possible  to  carry 
discipline  of  this  kind  far  enough  within  the  limits  of  age  to 
achieve  any  real  intellectual  result. 

The  public  school  of  the  Highest  grade  necessarily  and  rightly 
3.  The  High  adjusts  its  course  to  the  requirements  of  the  Uni- 
School.  versity,  for  which  as  a  rule  its  pupils  are  destined. 

It  keeps  in  view  the  same  broad  distinctions,  and  the  same  gen- 
eral scheme  of  the  co-ordination  of  studies;  but  it  may  from  the 
first  lay  wider  and  deeper  foundations ;  it  may  proceed  more 
slowly,  and  may  fitly  give  heed  to  niceties  of  scholarship  which 
would  be  unsuitable  in  a  shorter  course.  The  scheme  put  forth 
by  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Joint  Board  for  the  final  exami- 
nation in  schools,  which  is  to  be  regarded  either  as  a  terminus 
ad  quern  relatively  to  the  public-school  course,  or  a  terminus  a 
quo  relatively  to  the  University,  and  is  to  serve  either  for  a 
leaving  certificate  or  for  matriculation,  arranges  studies  in  four 
groups  on  this  wise: 

I.     (1)  Latin,  (2)  Greek,  (3)  French  and  German; 
II.    (1)  Scripture  knowledge,  (2)  English,  (3)  History; 

III.  (1)  Mathematics  (elementary),   (2)  Mathematics  (addi- 

tional); 

IV.  (1)  Natural  Philosophy,   (2)  Heat  and  Chemistry,  (3) 

Botany,  (4)  Physical  Geography  and  elementary 

Geology; 

and  requires  candidates  to  satisfy  the  examiners  in  at  least  four 
subjects  taken  from  not  less  than  three  different  groups. 
Having  determined  the  course  of  instruction  by  considering 

Each  urse  *^e  a&e  to  wn^c^  ^  *s  likely  to  be  prolonged,  we 
rounded  and  have  to  secure  that  within  this  probable  limit  there 
">mp  e  '  shall  be  unity  of  purpose,  and  a  distinct  recogni- 
tion of  the  claims  of  each  of  the  four  or  five  principal  means  of 
training.  The  course  should  be  rounded  and  complete  as  far 


What  is  a  "Liberal"  ''Education?  53 

as  it  goes,  on  the  supposition  that,  except  in  the  case  of  schools 
which  are  preparing  for  the  University,  there  is  little  or  no 
chance  that  the  time  of  formal  school  instruction  will  be  pro- 
longed. It  is  by  losing  sight  of  this,  that  we  often  commit  the 
grave  mistake  of  conducting  the  school  education  of  a  boy  on 
too  pretentious  a  plan,  and  on  the  assumption  that  he  is  to 
make  a  long  stay  at  school.  And  the  incomplete  frustum  of  a 
higher  course  is  not  of  the  same  value  as  the  whole  of  a  scheme 
of  instruction  which  from  the  first  has  a  less  ambitious  aim. 
The  nature  and  extent  of  a  foundation  must  be  determined  by 
the  character  of  the  superstructure  you  propose  to  build  on  it. 
The  course  of  instruction  should  be  begun  with  a  reasonable 
prospect  of  continuing  it.  Otherwise  it  may  simply  come  to 
nothing,  and  represent  a  weary  waste  of  time. 
And  thus,  we  are  to  have  in  view,  for  schools  of  all  kinds,  an 

education  which  may  well  deserve  to  be  called    ,    ,      .  . 

And  each  in 

"liberal,  because  it  seeks  to  train  the  man,  and  asensea"lib- 
not  merely  the  good  tradesman  or  doctor  or  me-  e 
chanic.  What  we  may  call  the  "real"  elements  of  a  school 
course,  the  acquisition  of  power  to  read  and  write  and  do  cer- 
tain things,  and  the  knowledge  of  useful  facts,  will  form  the 
largest  proportion  of  the  work  of  the  primary  school;  while  the 
formative  elements, — those  which  seek  to  give  general  power 
and  capacity, — language,  logic  and  science,  will  be  less  promi- 
nent, simply  for  the  reason  that  time  is  limited.  But  these 
higher  elements  should  not  be  absent  even  from  a  course  of 
instruction  which  ended  at  10  or  11.  And  the  reason  why  a 
High  or  public  school  course  or  a  University  course  better  de- 
serves to  be  called  a  course  of  liberal  education  than  the  other, 
is  not  because  it  neglects  the  "  real "  elements  of  manual  arts 
and  matters  of  fact,  but  simply  because  a  larger  porportion  of 
its  work  is  essentially  formative  and  disciplinal ;  and  because 
every  year  enables  the  student  to  give  relatively  more  attention 
to  those  studies,  by  which  taste  and  power  and  thoughtf  ulness 
are  increased.  From  this  point  of  view,  it  will  be  seen  how 
unsatisfactory  are  such  designations  as  "  Classical :>  school, 


54       The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

ReaUchule,  or  "Science"  school,  which  imply  that  all  the  intel- 
lectual training  is  to  be  of  one  kind,  or  worse  than  all  "  Com- 
mercial "  school,  which  implies  that  there  is  to  be  no  intellectual 
training  at  all,  but  that  the  whole  course  shall  be  consciously 
directed  rather  to  the  means  of  getting  a  living,  than  to  the 
claims  of  life  itself. 

And  if  this  be  the  true  principle  to  be  kept  in  view  in  the 
,„  gradation  of  schools,  it  follows  that,  except  within 

dation  of  certain  limits,  we  must  not  regard  the  primary  as 
a  preparatory  school  for  the  secondary,  or  the 
secondary  for  the  high  school.  We  need,  no  doubt,  to  con- 
struct the  ladder  of  which  we  have  so  often  heard,  from  the 
lower  to  the  highest  grades  of  public  instruction.  But  it 
is  a  grave  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  highest  step  in  a  lower 
school  corresponds  with  the  lower  one  in  the  secondary. 
Or  to  change  the  figure,  the  three  courses  of  instruction — 
primary,  secondary  and  higher — may  be  compared  to  three 
pyramids,  of  different  sizes,  though  all  in  their  way  sym- 
metrical and  perfect.  But  you  cannot  take  the  apex  of  the 
larger  pyramid  and  set  it  on  the  top  of  a  smaller.  You  may 
indeed  fit  on,  with  a  certain  practical  convenience,  the  top  of 
the  higher  scheme  of  education  to  the  truncated  scheme  of  the 
lower,  provided  you  go  low  enough.  If  by  means  of  scholar- 
ships or  otherwise,  we  desire  to  take  a  promising  pupil  out  of 
the  elementary  into  the  secondary  school,  it  is  not  expedient  to 
keep  him  in  the  first  till  14  when  the  course  is  ended,  and  then 
transfer  him  for  the  last  two  years  of  his  school  life  into  a 
school  of  higher  pretensions.  He  should  be  discovered  earlier, 
say  at  11,  and  placed  in  the  higher  school  for  a  sufficiently  long 
period  to  gain  the  full  advantage  of  its  extended  course.  And 
in  like  manner,  if  a  scholar  is  to  be  helped  from  a  secondary 
school  into  one  which  prepares  for  the  Universities,  he  should 
not  remain  to  complete  the  school  course,  but  should  be  cap- 
tured, and  transferred  at  14  or  15  at  the  latest.  Otherwise  it 
will  be  found  that  he  has  something  to  unlearn,  that  the  con 
tinuity  of  his  school  life  is  broken,  that  some  of  the  books  and 


The  Grading  of  Schools.  55 

methods  will  be  new  to  him,  and  that  the  conditions  will  not 
be  favorable  to  his  learning  all  which  the  more  The  "finish- 
advanced  school  can  teach.  This  principle,  if  ing"  Scnoc)1- 
once  accepted,  will  it  is  clear  prove  fatal  to  the  very  prevalent 
notion  that  the  higher  or  more  expensive  school  may  be  regarded 
as  a  sort  of  finishing  school  for  pupils  from  the  lower.  There 
is  still  a  theory,  current  especially  among  parents  in  regard  to 
girls,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  take  a  pupil  from  one  school,  and 
send  her  for  the  last  year  to  some  expensive  establishment  to 
"finish."  I  know  few  more  pestilent  heresies  than  this — the 
notion  that  a  little  top-dressing  of  accomplishments  is  the  proper 
end  of  a  school  course.  There  is  a  great  break  in  the  unity  and 
sequence  of  the  school  career;  and  the  new  books  and  new 
aims  come  much  too  late  to  be  of  any  real  service,  and  indeed 
serve  only  to  unsettle  the  pupil.  When  schools  are  rightly 
graded  each  will  have  its  own  complete  and  characteristic 
course;  and  for  this  reason,  it  is  only  within  certain  limits,  that 
is  to  say,  about  two  years  before  its  natural  completion,  that 
any  one  of  these  courses  can  be  rightly  regarded  as  preparatory 
to  the  other.* 

In  fashioning  schemes  of  instruction,  it  is  well  to  make  up 
our  minds  as  to  the  relative  advantages  of  day   D         , 
schools  and  boarding  schools.     In  this  part  of  our   boarding 
island,  a  strong  preference  has  long  been  felt  for 
boarding  schools;  and  it  is  believed  that  a  more  complete  as 
well  as  a  more  guarded  course  of  education  is  attainable  in 

*  The  desire  of  the  Schools  Inquiry  Commission  was  to  make  three 
grades  of  Schools  above  the  primary:  the  Third  grade  for  scholars  who 
would  leave  at  15,  in  which  the  fees  should  be  £4  or  £5  a  year;  the 
Second  grade  to  take  boys  to  J6  or  17,  and  to  charge  fees  of  £8  or  £10; 
and  the  First  grade  to  retain  scholars  till  at  the  age  of  18  or  19  they 
should  be  able  to  proceed  to  the  University;  and  in  such  schools  the 
fees  might  be  fixed  from  £15  to  £20  a  year  for  tuition  only.  This  theory 
has  proved  to  be  unworkable,  (1)  because,  in  fact,  it  separates  three 
classes  rather  too  rigidly,  when  two  would  have  sufficed;  and  (2)  because 
of  the  unfortunate  use  of  the  word  "  grade,"  which  is  popularly  taken  to 
connote  social  rather  than  educational  rank. 


56       The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

them  than  in  day  schools.  In  Scotland  and  in  most  European 
countries  the  opposite  feeling  has  prevailed;  and  wherever  good 
day  schools  are  within  reach  parents  prefer  to  use  them,  and  to 
look  after  the  moral  discipline  of  their  children  at  home.  I  be- 
lieve that  this  view  is  becoming  more  prevalent  among  us,  and 
that  the  establishment  of  large  public  day  schools  in  towns  is 
doing  much  to  reconcile  parents,  especially  in  regard  to  girls,  to 
a  method  of  training  which  a  few  years  ago  was  generally 
regarded  by  the  middle  and  upper  classes  as  inadequate  and 
just  a  little  lowering  from  the  social  point  of  view.  The  dis- 
cipline of  an  orderly  and  intelligent  home,  and  the  intercourse 
with  brothers  and  sisters,  is  itself  an  important  part  of  education. 
But  this  cannot  be  attained,  when  three-  fourths  of  the  year  are 
spent  in  an  artificial  community,  which  is  very  unlike  a  home, 
in  which  one's  companions  are  all  of  one  sex  and  nearly  of  the 
same  age,  and  in  which  the  child  is  placed  under  the  discipline 
of  strangers  who  have  no  other  than  a  professional  interest  in 
Home  should  u*s  Pr°Sress-  If  we  consider  the  matter  well,  there 

be  a  place  of  is  a  sense  in  which  the  custom  of  relying  on  the 
work 

boarding  school  implies  the  degradation  of  the 

home.  It  attaches  the  ideas  of  duty,  order  and  systematic  work 
exclusively  to  the  school;  and  of  leisure,  license  and  habitual 
indulgence  to  the  home.  Now  the  highest  conception  of  the 
life  of  youth  regards  both  school  and  home  as  places  of  system- 
atic discipline,  and  of  orderly  and  happy  work.  It  is  after  all 
in  the  home  that  much  of  the  serious  work  of  men,  and  nearly 
all  the  serious  work  of  women,  has  ultimately  to  be  done;  and 
the  sooner  this  fact  is  made  evident  to  the  young  scholar 
the  better.  No  parent  should  willingly  consent  to  part  for  a 
large  part  of  the  year  with  the  whole  moral  supervision  of  his 
child.  That  so  many  parents  do  thus  consent  may  be  attribut- 
ed partly  to  the  conviction  of  some,  that  they  are  unable  owing 
to  other  occupations  or  to  personal  inaptitude  to  do  the  work 
properly;  and  partly  to  the  love  of  social  exclusiveness,  which 
is  a  prominent  characteristic  and  not  the  noblest  characteristic 
of  people  in  the  middle  and  upper  ranks.  We  all  know  that  a 


Boarding  Schools.  57 


day  school  is  often  spoken  of  as  an  inferior  institution,  one  in 
which  there  will  be  mixture  of  classes,  an  object  of  special 
dread  to  the  vulgar  rich.  With  a  truer  sense  of  responsibility 
on  the  part  of  parents  and  truer  notions  as  to  the  functions  of  a 
school,  this  difficulty  is  likely  to  become  less  seriously  felt. 
The  association  of  scholars  from  different  ranks  of  life  in 
classes  and  lessons,  involves  no  real  danger  to  the  manners  and 
habits  of  a  child.  On  the  contrary  such  association  is  well 
calculated  to  break  down  foolish  prejudice,  to  furnish  the  best 
kind  of  intellectual  stimulus,  and  to  show  the  scholar  his  true 
place  in  the  world  in  which  he  has  to  play  his  part.  This  prin- 
ciple is  already  widely  recognized  in  regard  to  boys;  but  it  is, 
for  obvious  reasons,  not  so  readily  admitted  in  its  relation  to 
girls,  although  it  is  not  less  true  and  sound  in  their  case.  Ere 
long,  I  hope  it  will  be  admitted  even  by  the  most  refined  of 
parents  that,  with  reasonable  care  as  to  the  associations  which 
their  daughters  form  out  of  school,  they  may  not  only  without 
risk,  but  with  great  advantage,  permit  them  to  share  all  the 
advantages  of  good  public  day  schools;  and  need  feel  no  greater 
misgiving  as  to  the  results  of  association  for  school  purposes, 
than  they  do  in  respect  to  the  meeting  together  on  Sundays  in 
the  same  place  for  public  worship. 

In  the  boarding  school,  however,  habits  and  personal  associa- 
tions are  necessarily  formed.  And  since,  partly  Theboard- 
from  necessity  and  partly  from  the  preference  of  iDg-sch°o1- 
parents,  boarding  schools  will  always  exist,  it  is  well  to  bear  in 
mind  that  the  reasons  which  render  them  desirable,  and  which 
should  control  their  organization,  differ  much  in  the  case  of 
boys  and  of  girls.  The  great  public  school  has  much  to  teach 
besides  what  is  learned  in  the  form  of  lessons,  much  which 
could  not  be  learned  by  boys  at  home.  It  is  a  moral  gymna- 
sium, an  arena  for  contest,  a  republican  community  in  which 
personal  rights  have  both  to  be  maintained  for  one's  self  and 
respected  in  others;  it  should  be  a  microcosm;  a  training  ground 
for  the  business  and  the  struggle  of  life,  and  for  the  duties  of  a 
world  in  which  men  have  to  work  with  men  and  to  contend 


58      The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

with  men.  But  a  big  conventual  boarding  school  for  girls  is 
unlike  any  world  which  they  are  ever  likely  to  enter.  It  has  no 
lesson  to  teach  and  no  discipline  to  furnish  which  bears  at  all 
on  the  future  claims  of  society  and  of  home.  Hence  while  the 
ideal  boarding  school  for  boys  may  be  large  and  stately;  with 
its  strong  sense  of  corporate  unity,  its  traditions,  its  contests,  its 
publicity,  its  representation  on  a  small  scale  of  municipal  and 
political  life;  the  ideal  boarding  school  for  girls  is  an  institution 
large  enough  indeed  as  to  all  its  teaching  arrangements  to  admit 
of  perfect  classification,  right  division  of  duty  among  teachers 
and  abundant  intellectual  activity;  but  organized,  as  to  all  its 
domestic  arrangements,  on  the  principle  of  small  sheltered 
boarding  houses  in  separate  communities  of  not  more  than  20, 
each  under  the  care  of  a  mistress  who  shall  stand  in  loco  paren- 
tis.  And  in  each  of  such  boarding  houses  it  is  well  that  care 
should  be  taken  to  gather  together  under  the  same  roof  scholars 
of  very  different  ages,  in  order  that  relations  of  helpfulness  and 
protection  may  be  established  between  the  elder  and  the  young- 
er, and  that  in  this  way  something  analogous  to  the  natural  dis- 
cipline of  a  family  may  be  attained. 

We  may  not  forget  too  that  all  large  boarding  establishments 
Class  when  limited  to  pupils  of  one  particular  class, 

boarding-  clergy-orphan  schools,  schools  for  officers'  daugh- 
ters, orphan-schools,  and  the  like,  have  a  very  nar- 
rowing influence  on  the  formation  of  character  and  are  essen- 
tially wrong  in  principle.  Any  disadvantages  which  belong  to 
the  children  of  any  one  such  class  become  intensified  by  the  at- 
tempt to  bring  them  up  together.  Experience  has  shown  us 
that  the  worst  thing  to  do  with  pauper  children  is  to  bring 
them  up  in  pauper  schools;  and  that  the  wise  course  is  as  soon 
as  possible  to  let  their  lives  be  passed  in  ordinary  homes,  and 
in  schools  frequented  by  children  whose  parents  are  not  pau- 
pers. So  the  happiest  thing  for  the  orphan  daughter  of  a 
clergyman  is  that  she  should  be  placed  in  a  school  where  the 
children  do  not  all  come  from  parsonages,  and  where  some  at 
least  of  her  associates  are  not  orphans. 


Modern  Departments.  59 

To  what  extent  are  the  principles  we  have  laid  down  con- 
sistent with  a  system  of  bifurcation,  or  division    T 

Bifurcation, 
of  the  upper  part  of  the  school,  into  two  branches, 

according  to  the  special  bent  or  probable  destiny  of  the 
scholars?  On  this  point  there  has  been  much  discussion. 
Even  in  the  greatest  and  most  ancient  of  our  schools,  it  has 
come  to  be  recognized  that  the  traditional  classical  discipline  is 
not  equally  suited  for  all  the  pupils;  that  what  are  called 
modern  subjects — modern  languages  and  sciences — have  a  right 
to  recognition;  and  that  for  all  boys  who  are  not  likely  to  go 
to  the  University,  as  well  as  for  all  who,  when  they  enter  an 
academic  life,  mean  to  pay  special  attention  to  science,  an 
alternative  course  should  be  offered;  and  they  should  be  per- 
mitted to  substitute  modern  languages  for  ancient,  or  chem- 
istry and  physical  science  for  literature.  And  hence  the  es- 
tablishment in  so  many  of  the  great  schools  of  what  are  called 
"modern  departments,"  or  "modern  sides."  It  is  impossible 
to  declare  that  this  experiment  has  been  wholly  successful. 
There  is  often  a  complete  separation,  say  at  the  age  of  15,  of 
the  boys  in  this  department  from  those  of  the  Modern  de- 
"  classical."  The  "moderns"  are  sometimes  payments, 
placed  under  the  care  of  a  class  of  teachers  of  inferior  academic 
rank.  It  is  understood  that  the  work  is  rather  easier,  and  that 
boys  of  inferior  abilities  gravitate  to  it.  So  it  comes  to  be  re- 
garded as  less  creditable  to  belong  to  it;  and  those  who  keep 
in  the  ancient  traditional  groove,  in  which  all  the  former 
triumphs  of  the  school  have  been  won,  consides  themselves 
not  only  intellectually  but  socially  superior  to  those  who  avail 
themselves  of  the  locus  pmnitenticB  provided  by  the  modern  de- 
partment. What  is  worse,  the  masters  themselves  often  en- 
courage this  feeling,  and  let  it  be  seen  that  they  think  the 
more  honorable  school  career  is  to  be  found  in  exclusive  de- 
votion to  classics.  We  shall  never  give  a  fair  chance  to  other 
forms  of  intellectual  discipline  while  this  state  of  academic 
opinion  lasts.  We  shall,  I  hope,  ere  long  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  true  way  to  recognize  the  claims  of  what  are 


60      The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

called  modern  subjects,  is  not  by  the  erection  of  separate  mod- 
ern departments,  but  rather  by  taking  a  wiser  and  more  philo- 
sophical view  of  the  whole  range  and  purpose  of  school  educa- 
tion. It  is  not  good  that  the  boy  who  is  to  be  a  classical 
scholar  should  grow  up  ignorant  of  physical  laws.  Still  less 
is  it  good  that  the  boy  who  shows  a  leaning  for  the  natural 
sciences  should  be  debarred  from  the  intellectual  culture 
which  literature  and  language  give.  And  it  may  well  be 
doubted  whether  it  is  desirable  to  recognize  too  early  the 
differences  of  natural  bent,  or  probable  professional  career,  at 
all.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  it  is  good  for  all  of  us  to  learn 
many  things  for  which  we  have  no  special  aptitude.  Unless 
we  do  this,  we  do  not  give  our  faculties  a  fair  chance.  We  do 
not  know  until  our  minds  have  been  directed  to  particular 
forms  of  study,  whether  they  will  prove  to  be  serviceable  to  us 
or  not.  You  and  I  know  many  persons  whose  intellectual 
training  has  been  completely  one-sided;  scholars,  e.g.,  who  have 
never  given  a  moment's  study  to  the  sciences  of  experiment  and 
observation  in  any  form.  With  some  of  them,  the  result  of 
this  is  seen  in  the  lofty  contempt  with  which  they  regard  the 
kind  of  knowledge  which  they  themselves  do  not  possess. 
With  others,  the  result  is  seen  in  a  highly  exaggerated  estimate 
of  chemistry  or  civil  engineering,  and  an  absurd  and  ultra- 
modest  depreciation  of  that  form  of  mental  culture  to  which 
they  themselves  owed  so  much.  Both  states  of  mind  are  mis- 
chievous. And  they  may  be  guarded  against  by  taking  care 
that  our  school-course  gives  at  least  the  elements  of  several 
different  kinds  of  knowledge  to  every  learner.  There  comes  a 
time,  no  doubt,  when  it  is  quite  clear  that  we  should  specialize, 
but  this  time  does  not  arrive  early;  and  until  it  arrives,  it  is 
important  that  we  should  secure  for  every  scholar  a  due  and 
harmonious  exercise  of  the  language  faculty,  of  the  logical 
faculty,  of  the  inductive  faculty;  as  well  as  of  the  powers  of 
acquisition,  and  of  memory.  Let  arrangements  be  made  by  all 
means  for  dropping  certain  studies,  when  experience  shall  have 
made  it  clear  that  they  would  be  unfruitful.  Let  German  be 


Girls'  Schools.  61 


the  substitute  for  Greek,  or  higher  proficiency  in  physics  be 
aimed  at  as  an  alternative  to  the  closer  perception  of  classic 
niceties.  But  you  do  not  want  distinct  courses  of  instruction, 
existing  side  by  side,  to  provide  for  these  objects.  And  if 
modern  departments  are  to  exist  at  all  in  our  great  schools,  they 
can  only  justify  their  existence  by  fulfilling  these  very  simple 
conditions: 

(1)  That  the  student  of  language  shall  not  neg-   Conditions 
lect  science,  nor  the  student  of  science  neglect  of  their  suc- 
language,  even  after  the  bifurcation  has  begun. 

(2)  That  in  each  department,  the  same  general  curriculum 
including  the  humanities  as  well  as  science  and  mathematics 
shall  be  pursued;  the  only  difference  being  in  the  proportion  of 
time  devoted  to  each,  and  possibly  in  the  particular  language 
or  science  selected,  e.g.  German  for  Greek,  chemistry  for  ap- 
plied mathematics. 

(3)  That  as  far  as  possible,  so  much  of  the  instruction  as  is 
common  to  the  scholars  in  both  departments — and  this  should 
be  by  far  the  larger  portion— should  be  given  to  them  in  com- 
mon, and  not  in  separate  departments  or  by  separate  teachers. 

(4)  That  there  shall  be  no  pretext  for  regarding  the  modern 
course  as  intellectually  inferior  to  the   other;   but  that  both 
courses  should  rank  as  equivalent,  exact  the  same  amount  of 
effort,  and  should  even  from  the  school-boy's  point  of  view  be 
equally  honorable. 

Now  how  far  ought  this  general  scheme  of  division  into  five 

departments,  of  which  the  first  two — the  real — 

,-..,,,,,.,..  .,         .,         Girls' schools 

gradually  yield  the  cniei  importance  to  the  other 

three,  the  formative  or  disciplinal,  to  be  modified  for  the  sake 
of  girls'  schools?  Probably  to  a  very  small  extent  indeed. 
We  may  indeed  postulate  one  special  condition,  for  which  we 
men  have  all  good  reason  to  be  thankful,  that  a  larger  portion 
of  a  woman's  life  than  of  ours  is  spent  in  giving  pleasure  to 
others;  and  that  to  charm  and  beautify  the  home  is  accepted  by 
her  as  the  chief — one  might  almost  say  the  professional — duty 


62       The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

which  she  feels  to  be  most  appropriate.  Hence  the  greater  im- 
portance in  her  case  of  some  form  of  artistic  training.  The 
elements  of  instrumental  music  and  of  drawing  should  be 
taught  to  every  girl;  and  these  studies  should  be  carried  far 
enough  to  give  her  faculties  for  them  a  fair  chance  of  revealing 
themselves,  and  to  discover  whether  she  is  likely  to  excel.  And 
as  soon  as  it  becomes  clear,  in  respect  to  either,  that  she  has  no 
special  aptitude,  and  no  prospect  of  attaining  excellence,  the 
subject  should  be  dropped.  Nothing  adds  more  to  the  charm 
of  life  than  good  music,  but  nothing  is  more  melancholy  than 
to  reflect  upon  the  wasted  hours  spent  by  many  a  girl  in  the 
mechanical  practice  of  music,  from  which  neither  she  nor  any 
hearer  derives  real  enjoyment.  But  this  admission  once  made, 
and  the  just  claims  of  art  and  taste  as  part  of  a  woman's  edu- 
cation duly  recognized,  there  seems  no  good  reason  for  making 
any  substantial  difference  between  the  intellectual  training  of 
one  sex  and  that  of  the  other.  The  reasons  which  have  been 
urged  for  a  co-ordinate  development  of  faculty  apply  to  the 
human  and  not  to  any  specially  masculine  needs. 

We  are  bound  to  make  a  practical  protest  against  that  view 
of  a  girl's  education  which  prevails  so  widely  among  ignorant 
parents.  They  often  care  more  for  the  accomplishments  by 
which  admiration  is  to  be  gained  in  early  years,  than  for  those 
qualities  by  which  it  is  to  be  permanently  retained,  and  the 
work  of  life  is  to  be  done.  In  the  long-run,  the  usefulness  and 
happiness  of  women  and  their  power  of  making  others  happy 
depends,  more  than  on  anything  else,  on  the  number  of  high 
and  worthy  subjects  in  which  they  take  an  intelligent  interest. 
Some  day  perhaps  we  may  be  in  a  position  to  map  out  the 
whole  field  of  knowledge,  and  to  say  how  much  of  it  is  mascu- 
line and  how  much  of  it  is  feminine.  At  present  the  data  for 
such  a  classification  are  not  before  us.  Experience  has  not  yet 
justified  us  in  saying  of  any  form  of  culture  or  useful  knowledge 
that  it  is  beyond  the  capacity  of  a  woman  to  attain  it,  or  that 
it  is  unsuited  to  her  intellectual  needs.  Meanwhile  the  best 
course  of  instruction  which  we  can  devise  ought  to  be  put  freely 


Distribution  of  Time.  63 

within  the  reach  of  men  and  women  alike.  We  may  be  well 
content  to  wait  and  see  what  comes  of  it;  for  we  may  be  sure 
that  no  harm  can  possibly  come  of  it. 

As  to  the  distribution  of  time,  it  is  impossible  to  lay  down 
any  rigid  rule,  applicable  to  schools  of  different   Distribution 
characters  and  aims.    Specimen  time-tables  might   of  time- 
easily  be  given,  but  they  would  probably  be  very  misleading. 
It  mny  be  useful,  however,  to  keep  in  view  some  general  direc- 
tions for  the  fabrication  of  your  own  time-table  : 

(1)  Calculate  the  total  number  of  hours  per  week  available 
for  instruction,  and  begin  by  determining  what  proportion  of 
these  hours  should  be  devoted  respectively  to  the  several  sub- 
jects. 

(2)  In  doing  this  contrive  to  alternate  the  work  so  that  no 
two  exercises  requiring  much  mental  effort  or  the  same  kind  of 
effort  come  together,  e.g.  let  a  lesson  in  translation,  in  history 
or  arithmetic,  be  followed  by  one  in  writing  or  drawing;  one 
in  which  the  judgment  or  memory  is  most  exercised  by  one  in 
which  another  set  of  faculties  is  called  into  play.    It  is  obvious 
that  the  exercises  which  require  most  thinking  should  generally 
come  earliest  in  the  day. 

(3)  Have  regard  to  the   character  and  composition  of  your 
teaching  staff;  and  to  the  necessity  for  continuous  yet  well- 
varied  and  not  too  laborious  employment  for  each  of  them;  par- 
ticularly for  those  who   arc  specialists,  or  teachers  of  single 
subjects. 

(4)  As  a  rule  do  not  let  any  lesson  last  longer  than  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour.     It  is  unreasonable  to  expect  continuous 
and  undivided  attention  for  a  longer  time,  and  with  very  young 
children  even  half  an  hour  is  enough.     Thus  a  three  hours' 
school  in  the  morning  should  be  divided  into  four  parts,  and  a 
two  hours'  attendance  in  the  afternoon  into  three. 

(5)  An  interval  of  ten  minutes  may  fitly  be  provided  in  the 
middle  of  each   school-time,  for  recreation  in  play  room  or 
ground.     So  a  morning  will  give  three  lessons  of  three-quarters 
of  an  hour  each,  one  of  half  an  hour,  which  is  quite  long 


64       The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

enough  say  for  a  dictation   or  a  writing  lesson,  and  a  little 
break  beside. 

(6)  Let  the  plans  be  so  arranged  as  to  provide  movement  and 
change  of  position  at  each  pause  in  the  work.     One  lesson  a 
day  may  very  properly  be  given  to  the  scholars  standing. 

(7)  Let  one  short  period   be  reserved  in  every  day  for  the 
criticism  of  the  preparatory  or  other  lessons  which  have  been 
done  out  of  school.    We  shall  see  hereafter  that  some  forms  of 
home  lessons  admit  of  very  effective  and  expeditious  correction 
in  class. 

(8)  Reserve  also  a  short  period,  for  some  purpose  not  compre- 
hended in  the  routine  of  studies,  say  the  last  half-hour  of  the 
week,  for  gathering  the  whole  school  together,  addressing  them 
on  some  topic  of  general  interest,  or  reading  an  extract  from 
some  interesting  book. 

(9)  Do  not  so  fill  up  your  own  time,  if  you  are  the  principal 
teacher,  and  have  assistants,  as  to  be  unable  to  fulfil  the  duty 
of  general  supervision.     Provide  for  your  own  inspection  and 
examination  of  the  work  of  the  several  classes,  at  least  once 
in  every  two  weeks,  and  take  care  that  the  work  of  all  youth- 
ful teachers,  and  of  those  who  are  not  fully  trained,  goes  on  in 
your  sight. 

(10)  Punctuality  should  be  the  rule  at  the  end  as  well  as  the 
beginning  of  a  lesson;  otherwise  you  do  not  keep  faith  with 
your  scholars.     The  time-table  is  in  the  nature  of  a  contract 
between  you  and  them.     Do  not  break  it.     The  pupils  are  as 
much  entitled  to  their  prescribed  period  of  leisure,  as  you  are 
to  your  prescribed  time  of  lecturing  and  expounding. 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  much  a  school  gains  by  possessing  a 
thoroughly  well  considered  time-table,  and  adhering  closely  to 
it.  In  the  elementary  school,  as  you  know,  the  time-table  once 
sanctioned  and  approved  by  the  Inspector,  and  duly  displayed, 
becomes  the  law  of  the  school,  and  must  not  in  any  way  be  de- 
parted from.  And  I  feel  sure  that  you  will  gain  by  putting 
yourselves  under  a  regime  just  as  severe.  For  the  habit  of  as- 
signing a  time  for  every  duty,  and  punctually  performing  every- 


Classification.  65 


thing  in  its  time,  is  of  great  value  in  the  formation  of  charac- 
ter. And  every  good  school  is  something  more  than  a  place 
for  the  acquirement  of  knowledge.  It  should  serve  as  a  disci- 
pline for  the  orderly  performance  of  work  all  through  life,  it 
should  set  up  a  high  standard  of  method  and  punctuality, 
should  train  to  habits  of  organized  and  steadfast  effort,  should 
be  "  an  image  of  the  mighty  world." 

In  separating  a  school  into  classes  two  conditions  have  to  be 
fulfilled — that  the  scholars  shall  be  near  enough  in  ciassiflca- 
ability  and  knowledge  to  work  well  together,  to  tlon- 
help  and  not  hinder  one  another,  and  that  there  shall  be  a  suf- 
ficient number  of  scholars  in  one  class  to  secure  real  emulation 
and  mental  stimulus.  A  large  school  in  which  the  ages  range 
from  10  to  15  may  for  the  former  purpose  have  five  classes. 
Indeed  it  may  be  roughly  said  that  there  should  be  as  many 
classes  as  there  are  years  in  the  school-life  of  the  scholars. 
Otherwise,  you  will  be  mingling  children  in  the  same  class 
whose  attainments  and  powers  differ  so  widely  that  either  some 
of  them  will  be  held  back,  or  others  will  be  urged  to  progress 
too  rapidly.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  essential  that  classes  should 
be  of  a  certain  size,  and  I  believe  that  every  teacher  who  under- 
stands his  business  prefers  large  classes  to  small  ones.  There 
are  advantages  in  the  fellowship  and  sympathy  which  are 
generated  by  numbers,  in  the  self-knowledge  which  the  pres- 
ence of  others  gives  to  each,  and  especially  in  the  stimulus 
which  a  dull  or  commonplace  child  receives  from  hearing  the 
answers  and  witnessing  the  performances  of  the  best  in  the 
class.  And  these  advantages  cannot  be  gained  in  a  small  class. 
In  fact  I  believe  it  is  as  easy  to  teach  20  together  as  10;  and 
that  in  some  respects  the  work  is  done  with  more  zest  and  more 
brightness.  So  it  will  be  seen  that  the  two  conditions  we  have 
laid  down  cannot  both  be  fulfilled  except  in  schools  of  a  certain 
size.  There  is  in  fact  an  inevitable  waste  of  resources  and  of 
teaching  power  in  any  school  of  less  than  100  children;  and  a 
very  serious  waste  in  small  schools  of  20  or  30.  In  all  of  them 
you  must  either  sacrifice  the  uniformity  of  the  teaching,  or  you 
5 


66      The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

must,  at  considerable  cost,  have  a  teacher  for  every  group  of  six 
or  seven  scholars,  and  in  such  classes  must  sacrifice  the  intel- 
lectual life  and  spirit  which  numbers  alone  can  give.  For  the 
sake  of  this  intellectual  life  I  should  be  prepared  to  make  some 
sacrifices  of  other  considerations,  and  even  to  incur  the  risk  in 
small  schools  of  keeping  back  one  or  two  elder  scholars,  or 
pushing  now  and  then  a  backward  scholar  a  little  farther  on 
than  would  otherwise  be  desirable.  The  most  joyless  and  un 
satisfactory  of  all  schools  are  those  in  which  each  child  is  treated 
individually,  is  working  few  or  no  exercises  in  common  with 
others,  and  comes  up  to  be  questioned  or  to  say  a  lesson  alone. 
In  examining  a  scholar  on  entrance,  before  the  age  of  ten  it  is 
E  trance  well  to  determine  his  position  mainly  by  his  read- 
Examina-  ing  and  by  his  arithmetic.  Above  that  age,  es- 
pecially in  a  school  in  which  language  forms  the 
staple  of  the  higher  instruction,  an  elementary  examination  in 
Latin,  in  Arithmetic  and  in  English  will  suffice  to  determine 
his  position.  These  are  the  best  rough  tests  for  choosing  the 
class  in  which  he  should  be  placed.  If  you  are  in  doubt,  it  is 
safer  and  better  to  put  him  low  at  first  rather  than  too  high.  It 
is  always  easy  as  well  as  pleasant  to  promote  him  afterwards,  if 
you  have  at  first  underestimated  his  powers;  and  it  is  neither 
easy  nor  pleasant  to  degrade  him  if  you  begin  by  making  a 
mistake  in  the  other  direction.  I  do  not  think  it  desirable  to 
have  separate  classification  for  different  subjects,  except  for 
special  subjects  such  as  drawing  or  music  in  which  the  in- 
dividual gifts  and  tastes,  of  children  otherwise  alike  in  age  and 
standing,  necessarily  differ  considerably.  But  for  all  the  or- 
dinary subjects  of  class  instruction,  language,  history,  reading, 
writing,  and  lessons  on  science,  it  is  well  to  keep  the  same 
scholars  together.  A  little  latitude  may  perhaps  be  allowed  for 
scholars  in  the  same  class  who  have  made  different  degrees  of 
progress  in  Arithmetic,  and  it  will  not  always  be  possible  or 
desirable  that  all  the  scholars  in  a  class  should  be  working  ex- 
actly the  same  sums.  Yet  even  here  we  have  to  ask  ourselves 
what  we  mean  by  progress.  It  does  not  mean  hurrying  on  to 


Fees.  67 

an  advanced  rule;  but  a  fuller  mastery  over  the  applications  of 
the  lower  rules.  I  would  therefore  resist  the  very  natural 
desire  of  the  more  intelligent  scholars,  who  may  have  got  on 
faster,  and  perhaps  finished  all  the  exercises  in  the  text-book 
under  a  particular  rule,  to  go  on  to  a  new  rule  before  their  fel- 
lows. It  is  much  better  to  let  them  occupy  their  time  either  in 
recapitulation,  or  in  doing  exercises  you  have  specially  selected 
from  a  more  difficult  book,  and  in  dealing  with  rather  more 
complex  exemplifications  of  the  lower  rules.  When  a  new  rule 
is  taken  the  whole  class  should  begin  it  at  once;  because  as  we 
shall  hereafter  see  the  oral  exposition  of  a  new  rule  is  an  es- 
sential part  of  class-work;  and  it  is  one  in  which  you  cannot 
dispense  with  that  kind  of  intellectual  exercise  which  comes 
from  questioning,  cross-questioning,  and  mutual  help.  And  if 
this  be  true  of  Arithmetic,  then  certainly  it  is  true  of  every 
other  subject  which  is  usually  taught  in  schools. 

A  word  or  two  may  be  properly  added  on  the  subject  of  fees. 
They  will  have  a  necessary  tendency  to  increase, 
as  the  value  of  money  alters,  and  the  public  esti- 
mation of  good  teaching  rises.  Already  the  sums  mentioned  on 
p.  55,  which  were  recommended  by  the  Schools'  Inquiry  Com- 
mission in  1867,  have  often  proved  to  be  insufficient  for  the 
satisfactory  conduct  even  of  schools  provided  with  good  build- 
ings for  which  no  interest  has  to  be  paid.  Much  will  depend 
on  the  size  of  the  schools — for  the  cost  per  head  is  reduced 
when  numbers  are  large — and  much  also  upon  the  character  of 
the  place  and  its  surroundings,  and  upon  the  value,  if  any,  of 
the  endowment  the  school  possesses.  But  whatever  the  fees 
prescribed,  they  should  be  inclusive  of  all  the  school  charges, 
and  of  all  the  subjects  taught  in  it.  There  is  no  harm  in 
graduating  fees  by  age,  or  in  imposing  a  heavier  charge  on 
those  who  come  into  the  school  late.  But  there  should  be  no 
graduation  by  subjects — no  extras,  except  perhaps  for  instru- 
mental music,  or  other  special  subject  requiring  quasi-private 
instruction.  Nothing  is  more  fatal  to  the  right  classification  of 
a  school,  and  to  its  corporate  unity,  than  the  necessity  of  ap- 


68      The  School:  its  Aims  and  Organization. 

pealing  to  the  parent  at  each  stage  of  a  pupil's  career,  to  know 
if  this  or  that  particular  subject  can  be  afforded  or  sanctioned. 
A  school  is  not  a  mart,  in  which  separate  purchases  may  be 
made  for  each  scholar  at  discretion  of  so  much  French,  or 
Latin  or  Mathematics,  but  an  organized  community  for  the 
purposes  of  common  instruction,  in  which  no  other  distinction 
should  be  recognized  among  the  scholars  than  the  fitness  of 
each  to  enter  a  particular  class  or  to  commence  a  new  study. 
And  of  this  fitness  the  principal  teacher  should  be  the  sole 
judge.  There  may  be  in  special  circumstances  good  reasons 
for  reducing  the  fee  to  the  holders  of  scholarships  or  exhibi- 
tions; but  the  fee  prescribed  by  regulation  for  those  who  have 
no  special  privilege  should  always  be  such  as  shall  honestly 
avow  to  the  parents  the  true  market  value  of  the  education  im- 
parted, and  as  shall  place  within  the  reach  of  every  scholar  who 
is  admitted,  without  exception,  the  full  advantage  of  all  the  in- 
struction which  the  school  can  furnish. 


Space  and  its  Arrangement.  69 


III.    THE  SCHOOL-EOOM  AND  ITS  APPLI- 
ANCES. 

WE  may  fitly  devote  one  of  our  meetings  to  the  consideration 
of  the  physical  conditions  under  which  school  The  physical 
work  should  be  carried  on,  and  the  merely  mate-  successful  °£ 
rial  equipments  and  appliances  which  are  needed  teaching, 
in  teaching.  Such  considerations  are  of  great  importance.  No 
effective  teaching  is  possible  when  children  are  in  a  state  of 
physical  discomfort.  We  cannot  afford  to  despise  one  of  the 
artifices  which  science  and  experience  have  adopted,  for  mak- 
ing our  scholars  more  at  ease,  and  putting  them  into  a  more 
receptive  attitude  for  instruction.  What  then  are  the  most 
favorable  external  conditions  under  which  the  work  of  a  school 
can  be  carried  on  ? 

There  is  first  the  necessity  for  sufficient  space.  In  the 
elementary  schools  it  is  an  imperative  require- 
ment that  at  least  eight  square  feet  of  floor  area 
shall  be  provided  for  every  child,  and  this  in  a  room  ten  feet 
high  means  a  total  space  of  80  cubic  feet.  This  is  the  mini- 
mum; and  in  schools  provided  by  the  rates  it  has  of  late  been 
the  practice  to  require  a  larger  space — ten  superficial  feet  or  100 
cubic  feet.  But  a  more  liberal  provision  still  is  needed  in 
good  secondary  schools.  For  you  have  not  only  to  provide 
sitting-room  at  a  desk  for  each  scholar,  but  room  for  each  class 
to  stand  up  and  means  for  combining  two  or  more  classes  for 
collective  lessons.  It  is  obvious  that  the  space-requirement 
must  be  mainly  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  organization 
of  the  school,  whether  in  separate  class-rooms  or  in  one  large 
room.  As  a  general  rule  there  is  no  harm  in  providing  an 
isolated  class  room  for  every  class  for  which  you  are  also  able 


70          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

to  provide  a  responsible  adult  teacher  who  does  not  need  con- 
stant supervision.  And  many  modern  schools  are  constructed 
on  the  theory  that  all  the  work  is  to  be  done  in  class-rooms, 
and  that  all  the  space  needed  is  a  sufficient  number  of  such 
rooms  to  seat  all  th?  scholars.  But  there  are  occasions  on 
which  it  is  desirable  that  all  the  scholars  should  assemble  to- 
gether; for  morning  or  evening  prayer,  for  singing,  or  for 
collective  addresses.  Without  a  central  hall  large  enough  to 
contain  the  whole  of  the  scholars,  the  corporate  life  of  a  school 
cannot  be  properly  sustained  and  many  opportunities  are  lost 
of  making  the  scholars  conscious  of  their  relations  to  each 
other  and  to  the  general  repute  and  success  of  Ihe  school.  And 
it  is  manifest  that  if  such  a  central  hall  is  used  for  these  public 
purposes  alone,  and  not  for  teaching,  much  space  is  wasted, 
and  the  estimate  of  area  already  given  must  be  multiplied  by 
two.  In  some  modern  schools  the  various  class  rooms  are 
arranged  in  the  four  sides  of  a  quadrangle  which  is  covered  in,  • 
and  which  serves  the  double  purpose  of  a  central  hall  and  of  a 
common  entrance  to  all  the  rooms.  In  this  way  you  econo- 
mize space  and  dispehse  altogether  with  the  necessity  for  a 
corridor.  Moreover  such  an  arrangement  renders  the  assem- 
bling of  all  the  scholars  from  their  separate  rooms,  and  the 
dismissal  of  all  to  their  work  after  the  roll-call  or  the  prayers 
of  the  morning,  a  simpler  and  easier  process.  On  the  whole, 
expeiience  shows  that  in  a  well-planned,  lofty  room  two  or 
three  or  even  more  different  classes  may  work  apart  without 
any  disadvantage;  and  this  arrangement  is  a  very  convenient 
one  for  securing  due  supervision  over  younger  teachers,  and 
especially  for  the  occasional  junction  of  two  or  three  classes  for 
some  lecture  or  special  exercise  which  may  be  given  collec- 
tively. Of  course,  if  you  are  in  circumstances  which  make 
you  indifferent  to  cost,  it  is  a  good  thing  to  have  class-room 
accommodation  enough  for  the  whole  school,  and  a  central 
hall  for  no  other  than  quasi-public  gatherings.  Even  then 
some  of  the  adjacent  class-rooms  should  be  so  divided  by  mova- 
ble partitions  that  two  of  them  may  be  readily  thrown  into 


Desks  and  their  Arrangement.  71 

one  when  occasion  requires.  But  when  circumstances  render 
it  important  to  economize  space  or  money,  one  large  room 
which  will  hold  the  entire  school  for  collective  purposes,  and 
class-rooms  enough  to  hold  half  the  scholars,  will  suffice.  This 
arrangement  presupposes  that,  for  ordinary  class  work,  one 
half  of  the  classes  will  meet  and  receive  their  lessons  side  by 
side  in  the  principal  room.  Thus,  taking  100  as  the  unit,  there 
should  be  one  room  of  45  ft.  by  20,  in  which  all  can  sit,  but  in 
which  half  are  habitually  taught;  and  two  class-rooms,  about 
15  by  17,  each  sufficiently  large  to  provide  accommodation  for 
25  scholars.  Class-rooms  should  be  adjacent  and  should  have 
glass  doors,  not  necessarily  for  easier  supervision,  though  that 
is  important,  but  for  increase  of  light. 

As  to  light,  we  have  to  remember  that  all  glare  should  be 
avoided,  and  that  therefore  southern  windows  are   r 

Light. 

not  the  best.  It  is  well  to  have  one  southern  win- 
dow for  cheerfulness,  but  the  main  light  should  be  the  steadier 
and  cooler  light  from  the  north.  I  need  hardly  say  that  though 
sunshine  may  easily  be  in  excess  in  a  school-room,  you  cannot 
have  too  much  of  it  in  a  play-ground.  The  best  light  for  work- 
ing purposes  is  from  the  roof;  but  skylights  are  often  hard  to 
open,  and  in  snowy  weather  are  apt  to  become  obscured.  They 
should  not  therefore  be  the  only  windows.  You  secure  a  better 
diffusion  of  light  throughout  a  room  and  avoid  shadows  by 
having  all  windows  high  up,  the  lowest  part  being  6  or  7  ft. 
from  the  ground.  But  this  is  not,  owing  to  the  structure  of 
rooms,  always  possible.  When  windows  are  low  side  light  is 
preferable  both  to  that  from  behind,  which  causes  the  pupil  to 
sit  in  his  own  shadow,  and  to  that  from  the  front,  which  is  apt 
to  distress  his  eyes.  Ajid  of  side  lights  that  from  the  left  hand 
is  always  the  best;  otherwise  the  pupil's  writing  is  done  at  a 
disadvantage  and  in  the  shadow  of  his  own  pen. 

In  planning  desks,  you  have  to  consider  several  requirements: 
(1)  They  should  be  comfortable,  with  a  height  of 
2  ft.  for  little  children,  and  2  ft.  6  in.  to  3  ft.  for 
older  scholars;  the  seat  in  both  cases  being  about  as  high  from 


72  The  School-room  and  Us  Appliances. 

the  ground  as  the  length  of  the  leg  from  the  knee  to  the  foot. 
There  should  be  a  back  rail  not  more  than  10  inches  high,  and 
for  very  young  children  about  7  inches  high,  to  give  support 
just  at  that  portion  of  the  back  where  it  is  most  needed.  Most 
backs  to  seats  and  pews  are  too  high.  (2)  They  should  be  easy 
of  access;  for  in  writing-lessons,  half  the  work  of  the  teacher 
consists  in  going  round  the  class  pointing  out  the  errors,  cor- 
recting and  pencilling  them;  and  this  is  impossible  if  the  desks 
are  long  or  too  crowded.  At  least  1  ft.  8  in.  should  be  allowed 
for  each  child.  In  some  of  the  American  schools  access  is 
facilitated  by  giving  to  each  scholar  a  separate  desk  and  scat,  the 
latter  revolving  on  a  pivot,  and  having  its  own  back  like  a  chair. 
But  this  is  a  very  expensive  arrangement.  In  the  schools  of 
the  School  Board  for  London,  the  desks  are  called  "dual." 
Each  of  these  measures  about  3  ft.  4  in.  long,  and  accommo- 
dates two  children.  They  are  constructed  with  a  hinge,  so  that 
the  front  half  can  be  lifted  up  when  standing  exercises  are 
given.  (3)  The  seats  of  scholars  should  be  compactly  arranged; 
so  that  for  teaching  the  whole  class  may  be  brought  well  into 
one  focus,  and  not  spread  over  too  wide  an  area  for  thorough 
supervision  and  economy  of  voice.  This  requirement  appears  to 
conflict  in  some  measure  with  the  first-named  conditions.  Yet  it 
seems  so  important  that,  for  the  sake  of  it,  I  should  be  inclined 
to  sacrifice  some  other  advantages.  The  desks  should  be  so  ar- 
ranged that  the  angle  of  vision  for  the  teacher  does  not  exceed  45°. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  have  more  than  five  desks  deep.  If  there  are 
six  the  scholars  behind  are  too  far  off  for  effective  oversight  or 
perfect  hearing.  (4)  Desks  should  be  very  slightly  sloped ,  nearly 
flat  and  about  1  foot  wide;  it  will  suffice  if  the  seats  have  a  width 
of  8  inches'.  There  should  be  a  shelf -space  underneath  for 
books  or  slates,  and  when  each  scholar  has  a  fixed  place  allotted 


1  For  fuller  details  on  this  subject,  and  indeed  on  most  of  the  topics 
treated  in  this  chapter,  the  reader  will  do  well  to  consult  an  excellent 
work,  Robson's  School  Architecture,  and  also  an  American  work  by 
Barnard  on  the  same  subject. 


Ventilation  and  Warmth.  73 


to  him,  this  space  may  be  kept  for  all  his  own  books  and  be- 
longings. But  except  for  a  very  limited  number  of  the  eldest 
and  most  trustworthy  scholars  in  a  High  school,  it  is  not  well 
to  have  lockers;  all  pigeon-holes  and  covered  spaces  which  are 
appropriated  to  the  use  of  individual  scholars  should  be  open 
or  easily  openable;  there  should  be  no  secrets  or  private  hoards, 
and  the  occasional  and  frequent  inspection  of  them  is  itself  a 
nsef  ul  discipline  in  neatness.  (5)  I  would  have  you  distrust  all 
contrivances  by  which  desks  like  Goldsmith's  "bed  by  night 
and  chest  of  drawers  by  day"  undertake  to  serve  two  purposes, 
e.g.  to  turn  over  and  furnish  a  back  suited  for  older  people  in 
a  lecture-room,  or  to  be  fixed  horizontally  two  together  to  make 
a  tea-table.  All  such  devices  are  unsatisfactory  and  involve  a 
sacrifice  of  complete  fitness  for  school  purposes.  The  desks 
should  be  so  arranged  that  the  teacher  from  his  desk  should 
command  the  whole  group.  There  are  two  ways  of  effecting 
this.  If  his  own  desk  is  on  the  floor,  the  fourth  and  fifth  rows 
of  desks  at  the  back  should  be  raised  by  two  steps,  so  that  each 
shall  be  higher  than  that  in  front.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  all 
the  scholars'  desks  are  on  the  same  level  floor,  he  himself 
should  have  his  desk  on  a  mounted  estrade  or  platform.  (6) 
We  have  to  remember  also  that  all  the  work  of  a  scholar  has 
not  to  be  done  at  a  desk.  For  the  due  maintenance  of  life  and 
animation  in  teaching,  it  is  well,  as  I  have  already  said,  to  give 
some  of  the  lessons  to  scholars  in  a  standing  position.  The 
change  of  attitude  is  a  relief,  and  is  conducive  to  mental  activ- 
ity. Do  not  therefore  have  so  large  a  portion  of  your  school 
or  class  room  encumbered  with  desks  as  to  make  this  arrange- 
ment impossible.  Always  have  space  enough  reserved  to  enable 
you  to  draw  out  the  class  into  the  form  of  a  standing  semi- 
circle. 

The  questions  of  warmth  and  of  ventilation  should  always  be 
considered  together.     They  are  rather  complex,          . 
owing  to  the  very  different  form  of  buildings,  the 
aspect  of  the  rooms,  and  the  relative  position  of  near  and  sur- 
rounding objects.     Teachers  have  few  opportunities  of  being 


74          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

consulted  by  architects  about  the  requirements  on  which  they 
wish  to  insist,  but  it  is  well  to  have  a  few  principles  in  view, 
ready  for  such  an  opportunity  when  it  occurs.  We  have  to 
remember  that  each  of  us  breathes  about  16  times  a  minute  or 
960  times  an  hour,  and  that  every  time  we  do  this  the  air  in  any 
confined  room  is  partly  vitiated.  The  indispensable  thing  is 
that  every  room  should  have  some  means  of  admitting  fresh 
and  emitting  foul  air.  There  are  several  ways  of  attaining  this. 
When  rooms  open  out  into  a  corridor,  a  good  place  for  a  venti- 
lator is  over  the  door;  when  a  group  of  gas-burners  is  in  the 
centre  of  the  room,  there  should  be  a  ventilating  shaft  above  it 
to  carry  off  the  products  of  combustion.  In  some  cases  a  ven- 
tilating opening  in  the  wall  of  the  chimney  above  the  fireplace  is 
useful.  And  for  the  admission  of  fresh  air,  a  Tobin  ventilating 
shaft  hi  the  corner  of  the  room,  communicating  below  with  the 
outer  air  and  open  about  7  feet  above  the  floor,  so  as  to  intro- 
duce a  current  of  ah-  where  no  draught  will  be  felt  by  the  head, 
is  often  an  effective  experiment.  But  all  windows  should  be 
made  to  open,  both  at  the  top  and  bottom;  and  in  any  interval 
which  occurs  in  the  work  of  the  class,  they  should  be  opened. 
A  very  slight  opening  both  at  the  top  and  the  bottom  of  a  win- 
dow at  the  same  time  is  often  found  to  be  effectual  as  a  venti- 
lator; for  you  have  here  what  the  engineers  call  an  upward  and 
a  downward  shaft,  the  colder  air  coming  in  at  the  bottom,  and 
passing  upwards  so  as  to  expel  the  bad  air  at  the  upper  open- 
ing. And  if,  owing  to  the  defective  supply  of  means  for  at- 
taining this  purpose,  you  have  any  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
air  is  likely  to  become  bad  in  a  three  hours'  sitting  of  the 
school,  it  is  a  good  plan  to  break  up  the  class  for  ten  minutes 
when  half  the  morning's  or  afternoon's  work  is  over,  and  in 
this  short  interval  to  throw  open  all  the  windows  and  introduce 
a  fresh  supply,  even  in  the  coldest  weather,  of  pure  air.  The 
little  sacrifice  of  time  will  be  more  than  compensated. 

As  to  warmth,  we  have  to  remember  that  the  temperature,  if 
work,  especially  sedentary  work,  is  to  be  carried  on  in  comfort, 
should  not  in  any  school-room  be  lower  than  60°.  But  it  is  bad 


Apparatus.  75 

policy  to  get  warmth  by  vitiating  the  air,  e.g.  by  gas-stoves,  by 

stoves  not  provided  with  flues,  by  steam,  or  by   ,. 

Wanntii. 
large  heated  metal  surf  aces.    On  the  whole,  except 

for  very  large  schools,  open  fires,  if  judicious  arrangements  are 
made  to  surround  them  with  proper  reflecting  surfaces  and  also 
to  diffuse  an  equable  temperature  through  the  room  and  to  pre- 
vent waste  of  fuel,  are  best  for  the  purposes  of  heat  and  ven- 
tilation as  well  as  of  cheerfulness.  It  may  be  added  that  a  gray 
color  is  better  for  the  walls  than  either  a  more  pronounced  and 
strong  color  or  simple  white. 

Of  the  teaching  appliances  in  the  room,  no  one  is  more  im- 
portant than  the  Black-board.  We  may  not  per- 
haps go  so  far  as  the  enthusiastic  Charbonneau, 
who  says  "Le  tableau  noir,  c'est  le  vie  d'enseignement,"  but 
we  may  safely  say  that  no  school  or  class-room  is  complete 
without  one;  that  there  is  no  single  subject  of  instruction 
wherein  constant  recourse  should  not  be  had  to  it;  and  that  it 
and  all  its  proper  appurtenances  of  chalk,  sponge,  and  duster 
should  always  be  within  easy  reach,  that  there  may  be  no  ex- 
cuse for  dispensing  with  its  aid  whenever  it  is  wanted.  Per- 
haps there  is  no  one  crux  by  which  you  may  detect  at  once  so 
clearly  the  difference  between  a  skilled  and  an  unskilled  teacher, 
as  the  frequency  and  tact  with  which  he  uses  the  black-board. 
In  some  American  schools  there  is  a  black-board  all  round 
the  room,  4  or  5  ft.  wide;  and  the  black  surface  close  to  the 
teacher's  desk  extends  nearly  to  the  ceiling.  This  surface  is 
more  often  of  slate  than  of  wood,  and  is  sometimes  of  a  mate- 
rial known  as  liquid  slating.  It  is  occasionally  of  a  green  color 
instead  of  black,  as  offering  a  pleasanter  surface  to  the  eye;  but 
diagrams  and  writing  are  apt  to  be  less  clear  when  any  color 
but  black  is  adopted. 

I  will  give  you  from  the  official  regulations  of  the  Belgian 

Government  the  list  of  objects  required  to  be  pro-    T 

J  Furniture  of 

vided  m  every  State  school:  aStateschool 

A  bust  or  portrait  of  the  King,  some  religious 
pictures,  a  small  shelf  or  case  for  the  teacher's  own  books  of 


76          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

reference,  a  collection  of  weights  and  measures,  a  set  of  dia- 
grams or  pictures  for  each  of  the  subjects  taught. 

A  map  of  Europe,  a  map  of  Belgium,  a  globe,  a  special  map 
of  the  province,  and  a  cadastral  plan  (ordnance  map)  of  the 
commune  in  which  the  school  is  situated. 

A  small  collection  of  objects  of  natural  history,  illustrative, 
as  far  as  possible,  of  the  flora,  fauna,  and  physical  products  of 
the  district. 

A  clock;  a  thermometer;  and  a  collection  illustrative  of  the 
principal  geometrical  forms. 

A  frame  or  board  on  which  to  affix  all  programmes  and 
special  rules,  as  well  as  the  permanent  time-table  of  the  class. 

To  this  one  might  add  that  an  easel  on  which  maps  or  dia- 
grams may  be  displayed  is  useful,  and  that  all  books,  slates, 
and  other  objects  in  use  in  the  class  should  be  kept  in  an  easily 
accessible  cupboard  in  the  room  itself,  not  only  because  all 
these  things  should  be  at  hand — otherwise  there  is  a  pretext 
sometimes  for  trying  to  do  without  them — but  also  because  all 
fetching  and  carrying  from  store  cupboards  at  a  distance  in- 
crease the  risk  of  loss  and  destruction. 

We  are  to  remember  that  over  and  above  the  convenience  and 
economy  which  have  to  be  secured  in  regard  to  all  school-mate- 
Care  of  furni-  "a^»  ^ere  are  important  incidental  purposes  to  be 

ture  impor-  served  by  care  and  method  in  all  these  material 
tant  as  disci- 
pline in  arrangements.  We  have  to  teach  respect  for  pub- 
lic property,  care  in  handling  things  which  are  not 
our  own  or  which  have  no  visible  owner.  It  is  notorious  that 
this  is  much  disregarded  in  higher  schools  for  boys,  and  that 
the  aspect  of  the  desks  and  school  furniture  in  them  is  such  as 
would  be  simply  disgraceful  in  a  school  for  the  poor.  There 
seems  no  good  reason  for  this  difference.  I  would  therefore 
never  permit  the  school-room  to  be  used  for  play,  or  to  be  open 
as  a  common  room  out  of  school  hours  when  there  is  no  super- 
vision. Remember  too  that  every  time  you  enlist  the  services 
of  the  scholars  in  some  little  effort  to  render  the  school-room 
and  its  surroundings  more  comely  and  attractive,  you  are  doing 


Comeliness  of  a  School.  77 

something  to  encourage  the  feeling  of  loyalty  and  pride  in  the 
school,  and  are  doing  still  more  to  educate  them  into  a  percep- 
tion of  beauty,  and  a  desire  for  refined  and  tasteful  surround- 
ings. In  schools  for  the  poor,  this  aim  is  especially  important; 
but  in  schools  for  children  of  every  rank,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  careful  and  artistic  arrangement  of  all  the  school 
material,  and  of  all  pictures  and  illustrations,  is  a  silent  but 
very  effective  lesson  in  good  taste;  and  will  go  far  to  make 
children  love  order  and  neatness.  Whoever  carries  into  his 
own  home  a  feeling  of  discomfort  and  of  aesthetic  rebellion 
against  dirt,  vulgarity,  and  untidiness,  has  learned  a  lesson 
which  is  of  considerable  value  as  a  foundation  for  an  orderly 
life.  Old  Joseph  Lancaster's  rule,  "A  place  for  everything 
and  everything  in  its  place,"  is  of  universal  application. 

The  registration  of  admission  and  of  attendance  in  elemen- 
tary schools  subsidized  by  government  grants  de- 

,  .  ,         ,       .  .  Registration, 

mands  a  special  and  minute  care,  owing  to  the 

fact  that  a  portion  of  the  grant  is  assessed  according  to  the  at- 
tendance; some  of  the  payments  made  being  dependent  on  the 
average  attendance  of  scholars  and  some  on  the  aggregate  of 
attendances  made  by  the  particular  scholars  presented  for  ex- 
amination. Hence,  for  the  elementary  schools  the  strictest 
rules  are  laid  down  (1)  for  the  marking  of  every  attendance, 

(2)  for  the  computation  of  the  number  of  attendances  registered 
for  each  child  in  every  year  and  in  every  separate  school  term, 

(3)  for  the  computation  of  averages  in  each  class,  and  of  the 
whole  school:  the  total  number  of  all  the  registered  attendances 
being  of  course  for  this  purpose  divided  by  the  number  of  times 
in  which  the  school  has  been  open.     No  erasures  are  ever  al- 
lowed.    An  exact  estimate  is  thus  easily  arrived  at  as  to  the 
degree  in  which  the  work  of  the  school  has  been  interrupted 
by  irregularity  of  attendance,  and  as  to  the  proportion  of  the 
actual  attendance  to  the  number  of  those  whose  names  appear 
on  the  school  registers.     Nothing  so  elaborate  is  needed  in  the 
case  of  higher  schools,  partly  because  no  grant  of  public  money 
is  involved,  and  partly  because  in  such  schools  the  scholars 


78          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

attend  much  more  regularly.  But  I  am  sure  that  the  impor- 
tance of  careful  registration  is  insufficiently  recognized  in  our 
secondary  and  high  schools;  and  I  think  that  even  in  the  best 
of  them  it  is  essential  that  there  should  be  a  systematic  record 
for  each  pupil  of  these  particulars:  (1)  the  date  of  admission 
and  the  exact  age;  (2)  tke  date  of  promotion  to  a  higher  class 
or  of  the  entry  on  a  new  study;  (3)  absence;  (4)  lateness;  (5)  the 
result  of  each  examination;  (6)  any  punishment  or  failure  of 
duty. 

You  want  all  these  particulars  for  your  own  satisfaction;  and 
also  for  reference  when  you  send  to  the  parent  of  each  scholar, 

Communica-  a*  tne  en<^  °^  *ne  term>  a  tabulated  statement  show- 
tion  to  ing  his  precise  position  as  to  attendance,  conduct, 

and  progress.  The  particulars  which  parents  have 
a  right  to  expect  from  a  well-ordered  school,  and  which  may 
easily  be  recorded  and  summarized  at  the  end  of  the  term 
wherever  the  habitual  book-keeping  is  careful,  are  these: 

The  number  of  times  in  which  the  scholar  has  been  absent 
from  a  lesson  or  late  in  attendance. 

The  result  of  any  examinations  which  may  have  been  held 
within  the  term. 

The  number  of  scholars  in  the  class  to  which  he  belongs. 

His  standing,  in  order  of  merit,  in  regard  to  each  subject  of 
instruction. 

His  place  in  the  form  or  class,  as  determined  by  the  collec- 
tive result  of  his  work. 

A  general  estimate  of  his  conduct. 

So  long  as  these  particulars  are  held  in  view,  it  matters  little 

Tabulated  wnat  ^orm  tne  reP°rt  t^es.  You  will  of  course 
reports  of  preserve  a  duplicate  of  every  such  report.  Each 
teacher  will  do  well  to  adopt  his  own  form,  and 
to  determine  on  his  own  particular  mode  of  estimation, 
whether  arithmetical,  by  the  use  of  mere  figures  or  marks;  or 
more  general,  by  the  use  of  such  symbols  as  Excellent,  Good, 
Fair,  Moderate,  and  Imperfect.  The  thing  to  be  chiefly  borne 
in  mind  in  the  choice  of  your  system  of  marking  is  to  reduce 


School  Diaries.  79 


to  a  minimum  the  chance  of  caprice  and  guess-work,  and  not 
to  attempt  to  record  anything  unless  you  have  carefully  pre- 
served the  data  by  which  you  can  assure  yourself  that  the 
record  is  thoroughly  accurate.  Some  teachers,  in  their  zeal  for 
comprehensiveness  of  statement,  have  columns  for  deportment, 
for  politeness,  and  for  other  moral  qualities  which  are  in  their 
nature  very  difficult  to  estimate,  and  in  respect  to  which  hap- 
hazard and  therefore  somewhat  unjust  estimates  are  almost 
necessarily  made.  For  example  I  have  seen  in  some  foreign 
schools  columns  for  registering  "  moralite  d'eleves,"  "disposi- 
tions naturelles,"  and  other  impossible  data.  Here  the  rule  is  a 
good  one:  Do  not  pretend  to  measure  with  arithmetical  exact- 
ness qualities  and  results  which  are  essentially  incapable  of  such 
measurement. 

In  the  French  Lycees,  the  system  of  registration  is  often  veiy 
elaborate.  There  is  (1)  Registre  d'inscription,  (2)  Registre  d'ap- 
pel,  or  attendance,  (3)  Registre  des  Compositions,  and  (4)  Registre 
des  bons  points,  in  which  marks  are  recorded  for  conduct,  and 
for  the  results  of  every  class  or  other  examination.  The  whole 
of  these  marks  are  added  up  and  tabulated  at  the  end  of  every 
month,  a  copy  being  kept  by  the  pupil,  and  one  sent  to  his 
parents  or  guardians. 

One  of  the  requirements  in  the  public  elementary  schools, 
which  at  first  appeared  to  many  of  the  teachers  to  school 
be  a  needless  addition  to  the  routine  and  burden  of  dianes- 
their  lives,  is  the  keeping  of  what  is  called  a  Log-book  or 
School  Diary.  It  is  a  thick  volume,  such  as  will  last  for  a  good 
many  years,  and  is  generally  fastened  with  a  Bramah  lock. 
The  Code  requires  that  entries  shall  be  made  in  this  book  at 
least  once  a  week,  and  that  thus  a  record  shall  be  kept  of  the 
Inspector's  report,  of  changes  in  the  staff,  of  visits  of  managers, 
and  other  facts  concerning  the  school  and  its  teachers.  It  is 
not  permitted  to  enter  reflections  or  opinions  of  a  general  char- 
acter. Now  the  practice  thus  enforced  by  authority  has  come  to 
be  generally  approved  and  liked  on  its  own  merits,  and  has  been 
found  of  considerable  value.  Many  little  circumstances  in  the 


80          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances, 

history  of  a  school  which  appear  of  no  importance  at  the  mo- 
ment require  to  be  recalled  afterwards,  and  are  seen  to  have  un- 
expected value  when  referred  to.  The  date  of  the  entry  ol  a 
new  teacher  on  his  duty,  the  introduction  of  any  new  school- 
book,  or  plan,  or  piece  of  apparatus;  the  starting  of  a  new 
series  of  lessons;  the  result  of  a  periodical  examination;  special 
occurrences  in  relation  to  the  discipline  of  the  school;  promo- 
tion of  scholars  from  one  class  to  another;  any  unusual  circum- 
stance which  affects  the  attendance;  the  visit  of  a  stranger  or  a 
governor — all  these  are  matters  which  are  easy  to  jot  down  at 
the  time  of  their  occurrence;  and  which  serve  to  make  up  the 
history  of  the  school,  and  to  give  continuity  and  interest  to  its 
life.  The  adoption  of  the  plan  may  be  strongly  recommended 
in  schools  of  all  grades. 

It  may  be  well  also  to  remember  that,  especially  in  schools  of 
School  book-  an7  size  m  which  the  number  of  books  and  the 
keeping.  quantity  of  school  material  given  out  is  large, 

there  should  always  be  a  Stock  book,  in  which  a  ledger  is 
kept,  showing  how  and  when  books  and  stationeiy  are  given 
out,  and  to  whom.  The  office  of  keeping  the  needful  record 
is  a  very  simple  one,  which  may  well  devolve  on  an  assistant, 
or  even  on  an  elder  scholar;  and  it  will  be  found  that  the  prac- 
tice conduces  to  economy  and  order;  and  enables  you  to  know 
exactly  in  what  direction  to  look,  if  you  have  reason  to  suspect 
negligence  or  waste. 

I  spoke  in  the  first  lecture  of  the  importance  of  the  habit  of 
Teachers'  preparing  the  notes  of  many  and  indeed  most  of 
note-books.  fae  lessons  you  give.  To  this  I  may  now  add  that 
such  notes  should  not  be  on  fugitive  scraps,  but  should  al- 
ways be  made  in  a  book  and  carefully  preserved.  Unless  a 
teacher  does  this  habitually  he  squanders  much  time  and  effort, 
and  has  the  weary  task  of  preparing  many  of  his  lessons  over 
again.  Suppose  you  keep  a  brief  record  of  the  plan  and  order 
of  each  lesson,  of  the  books  or  authorities  you  consulted  in 
getting  it  up;  suppose  you  add  a  little  note  after  giving  it,  stat- 
ing whether  it  proved  too  long  or  too  short,  too  easy  or  too  diffi- 


Scholars'  Note-books.  81 

cult;  and  indicating  for  your  own  private  information  how  it 
might  be  more  effectively  given  next  time:  and  lastly  suppose 
you  leave  a  blank  space  at  the  end  of  each,  and  enter  in  it  from 
time  to  time,  as  new  information  comes  in  your  way,  other 
facts  or  references  which  will  be  helpful  whenever  you  go  over 
the  same  ground  again;  you  will  find  the  practice  easy  and 
well  calculated  to  economize  time  and  power.  It  will  bring  all 
your  wider  reading  and  added  experience  to  bear  on  the  enrich- 
ment of  your  professional  resources;  it  will  aid  you  in  gather- 
ing up  the  fragments  of  life's  teaching  "that  nothing  be  lost." 

In  the  higher  classes,  and  for  all  lessons  which  take  the  form 
of  lectures,  it  is  a  good  practice  to  let  the  scholars  scholars' 
have  note-books,  to  take  down  at  the  moment  any  note-1***33- 
details  which  are  likely  to  escape  the  memory.  But  such  note- 
taking  is  of  no  value  whatever,  unless  the  notes  are  used  after- 
wards as  helps  to  the  writing  out  of  an  amplified  and  careful 
summary  of  the  contents  of  the  lesson.  Mere  note-taking  is 
often  one  of  the  most  delusive  and  unfruitful  of  practices. 
Consider  for  a  moment,  what  is  the  purpose  which  the  taking 
of  notes  ought  to  serve.  I  have  seen  students  in  reading 
Froude's  history,  or  Mill's  Logic,  sit  down  with  the  book  on 
one  side  of  them  and  a  large  note  or  commonplace  book  on  the 
other  into  which  they  have  laboriously  made  copious  extracts. 
There  seems  to  be  a  good  deal  to  show  for  this  effort;  but  the 
result  often  is  that  the  author's  thoughts  have  merely  been 
transferred  out  of  one  book  into  another;  and  the  proportion  of 
these  thoughts  which  have  actually  found  a  lodgment  in  the 
student's  intelligence  is  very  small  indeed.  There  has  been  a 
mechanical  process  of  appropriation,  not  a  rational  one.1 

The  true  way  to  make  notes  of  a  book  when  you  read  it  is — 

1  "  Men  seldom  read  again  what  they  have  committed  to  paper,  nor 
remember  what  they  have  so  committed  one  iota  the  better  for  their 
additional  trouble.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  it  has  a  direct  tendency 
to  destroy  the  promptitude  and  tenuity  of  memory  by  diminishing  the 
vigor  of  present  attention  and  seducing  the  mind  to  depend  on  future 
reference."— SYDNEY  SMITH. 
6 


82  The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

if  it  is  your  own— to  mark  in  the  margin  the  passages  which 
Note-taking  you  feel  to  be  of  most  value,  and  to  make  at 
generally.  ^ne  en(j  a  \\n\G  index  of  references,  which  will 
differ  from  the  printed  index,  in  being  specially  suited  to 
you,  and  calculated  to  help  you  in  consulting  the  book  here- 
after. But  except  for  these  purposes,  I  would  not  read 
with  a  pencil  in  hand,  or  copy  out  extracts.  It  is  far  bet- 
ter to  read  through  an  entire  chapter  or  section,  while  the 
whole  faculty  is  bent  on  following  the  reasoning  or  under- 
standing the  facts.  Then  when  you  have  closed  the  book,  and 
while  your  memory  is  fresh,  sit  down,  and  reproduce  in  your 
own  words  as  much  of  the  contents  of  the  chapter  as  you 
please.  By  this  means  you  will  have  been  forced  to  turn  the 
subject  over  in  your  own  mind,  to  ruminate  a  little,  and  so  to 
make  it  your  own.  But  unless  this  process  of  rumination  goes 
on,  there  is  no  security  that  any  of  the  knowledge  you  are 
trying  to  acquire  is  actually  assimilated.  And  the  same  rule 
applies  to  the  use  of  note-books  during  lectures.  Many  students 
make  a  great  effort  to  seize  rapidly  whole  sentences  and  to  set 
them  down  at  the  time;  but  while  they  are  writing  one  down, 
another  follows  which  gravely  modifies  the  first,  and  this 
escapes  them.  Thus  they  get  a  few  disjointed  fragments,  torn 
from  their  proper  connection,  and  they  fail  to  gain  any  true 
intellectual  advantage  from  the  whole.  I  am  aware  that  the 
judicious  use  of  a  note-book  depends  a  good  deal  on  the  special 
character  of  the  teaching;  and  that  a  good  many  lecturers  in 
the  Universities  and  elsewhere  expressly  adapt  their  prelections 
to  the  case  of  students  who  take  notes.  I  have  heard  very  able 
lectures  which  took  the  form  of  measured,  brief,  but  very  preg- 
nant sentences,  in  which  the  lecturer  had  been  at  the  pains  to 
concentrate  as  much  thought  as  possible  ;  these  sentences  being 
slowly  uttered,  with  a  sufficient  pause  at  the  end  of  each,  to 
allow  quick  writers  to  take  down  the  whole  verbatim.  Un- 
doubtedly the  note-book  result  in  such  cases  seems  to  have 
considerable  value.  But  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the 
most  effective  teaching  ever  takes  the  form  of  a  dictation 


The  Taking  of  Written  Notes.  83 

lesson;  still  more  may  it  be  doubted  whether  when  this  method 
is  adopted  enough  is  done  to  make  the  students  thinkers  as 
well  as  receivers,  on  the  subject  which  they  learn.  Whenever 
the  object  of  the  lecture  is  to  expound  principles,  to  illustrate 
them  in  an  ample  and  varied  way,  and  to  show  the  learner 
rather  the  processes  by  which  the  results  are  arrived  at  than 
the  formulated  results  and  conclusions  themselves,  you  fail  to 
derive  any  real  advantage  from  very  copious  note-taking.  It 
is  distracting,  not  helpful.  You  get  a  few  detached  sentences, 
perhaps,  which  in  an  unqualified  way  and  out  of  their  true 
perspective  are  no  fair  representation  of  the  lecturer's  meaning: 
the  continuity  of  his  argument  is  broken  while  you  are  picking 
out  these  fragments;  and  you  fail  wholly  to  get  the  particular 
kind  of  stimulus  and  help  which  the  lecturer  wants  to  give. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  will  listen  attentively,  seek  to  follow 
the  reasoning,  and  to  possess  yourself  not  only  of  the  aphorisms 
and  conclusions,  but  of  the  processes  by  which  they  have  been 
arrived  at;  and  perhaps  now  and  then  jot  down  a  characteristic 
phrase,  a  heading  or  some  hint  as  to  the  order  of  the  thought: 
and  then,  on  getting  home,  revolve  the  whole  matter  in  your 
mind,  and  write  down  in  your  own  words  an  orderly  summary 
of  your  recollections,  there  will  be  a  genuine  acquisition.  You 
will  be  sure  that  some  at  least  of  what  you  have  tried  to  learn 
has  been  actually  assimilated.  And  I  would  counsel  the  adop- 
tion of  the  same  rule  in  permitting  your  scholars  the  practice 
of  note-taking.  Teach  them  how  to  use  note-books.  Do  not 
let  them  suppose  that  the  reproduction  of  your  phrases  is  of 
any  use.  Do  not  mistake  means  for  ends.  It  is  a  chemical 
not  a  mechanical  combination  you  want.  It  is  the  writing 
out  of  memoranda  after  the  lecture  which  serves  this  purpose 
and  is  of  real  intellectual  value;  not  the  notes  taken  during  the 
lecture  itself.  And  of  these  notes  you  have  no  assurance  that 
they  have  served  any  good  purpose  unless  they  are  ultimately 
translated  out  of  your  phraseology  into  the  student's  own  lan- 
guage. 
On  the  larger  subject  of  School-books  and  Manuals  much 


84          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

might  be  said.     But  it  would  obviously  be  beside  the  main 

. ,     .         purpose  of  these  lectures  if  I  were  to  take  upon 
Text-books.  __ 

myself  to  recommend  particular  books;  and  so 

possibly  to  do  injustice  to  the  authors  and  publishers  of  many 
excellent  books  which  I  have  never  seen.  The  truth  is  that 
goodness  and  fitness  in  a  school-book  are  not  absolute  but  rela- 
tive terms.  They  depend  entirely  on  the  person  who  uses  it. 
That  book  is  the  best  for  each  teacher  which  he  feels  he  can 
use  best,  and  which  suits  best  his  own  method  and  ideal  of 
work.  Even  if  the  best  conceivable  criticism  could  be  brought 
to  bear  on  all  the  innumerable  manuals  now  in  use,  and  they 
could  be  arranged  in  the  order  of  abstract  merit,  such  criticism 
might  not  help  you  much.  There  would  still  remain  for  each 
of  you  the  responsibility  of  making  your  own  choice.  Indeed 
some  of  the  best  and  most  vigorous  teaching  I  have  ever  heard 
has  been  given  by  teachers  who  were  consciously  using  a  very 
bad  book,  and  who  were  goaded  by  it  into  remonstrance  and 
criticism,  which  were  in  themselves  very  instructive  and  stimu- 
lating to  the  learner.  I  remember  well  my  own  teacher  of 
mathematics,  Professor  De  Morgan,  and  his  animated  polemic 
against  Dilworth  and  Walkinghame,  and  especially  poor  Robert 
Simson's  edition  of  Euclid.  His  anger,  his  pitiless  sarcasm,  as 
he  denounced  the  dulness  of  these  writers  and  exposed  the 
crudeness  of  their  mathematical  conceptions,  were  in  them- 
selves well  calculated  to  sharpen  the  perceptions  of  his  students. 
The  -bad  book  in  the  hands  of  a  skilful  teacher  proved  to  be 
better  than  the  best  book  in  the  hands  of  an  ordinary  prac- 
titioner. I  am  not,  however,  prepared  to  recommend  the  use 
of  bad  books  as  a  general  expedient.  But  it  cannot  be  too 
clearly  understood  that  the  right  choice  of  a  book  depends  en- 
tirely on  the  use  you  mean  to  make  of  it. 

If  you  are,  as  every  teacher  ought  to  be,  fluent  and  skilful  in 
oral  exposition,  you  will  need  very  little  of  the  sort  of  explana- 
tion which  school-books  contain;  your  chief  want  will  be  sup- 
plied by  books  of  well-graduated  exercises,  by  which  your  orar 
teaching  may  be  supplemented,  fixed,  thrust  home,  and  brought 


Tests  of  a  Good  School-book.  85 

to  a  point.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  want  explanations, 
rules,  and  a  knowledge  of  principles,  mere  books  of  exercises 
will  not  suffice.  You  need  the  treatises  more  or  less  full, — say 
of  grammar,  of  arithmetic,  of  geography, — and  I  will  not 
promise  that  when  you  have  got  the  best  of  them  your  pupils 
will  be  able  to  make  progress  with  their  help  alone.  The  best 
explanations  in  school-books  are  concise,  and  therefore  gene- 
rally inadequate.  They  need  expansion  and  much  comment 
The  Educational  Reading  Room  at  South  Kensington  is  a  great 
resource.  In  it  you  will  always  find  very  easy  of  access  all  the 
newest  and  best  school-books;  which  you  can  sit  down  and 
examine,  and  from  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  determine  what 
form  of  manual  will  suit  your  purpose  best. 

Some  of  the  tests  by  which  the  goodness  of  a  school-book 
may  be  determined  are  not  however  difficult  to  lay  Some  tests 
down.  Take  a  Reading-book  for  example.  You  of  a  good 
have  here  to  secure:  that  it  is  well  printed  and  at- 
tractive, that  it  is  not  silly  and  too  childish,  that  the  passages 
selected  are  not  too  short  and  scrappy,  but  continuous  enough 
to  be  of  some  value  in  sustaining  thought,  and  that  every  lesson 
contains  a  few — a  very  few — new  words  which  are  distinct  ad- 
ditions to  the  reader's  vocabulary.  Above  all  it  concerns  you  to 
be  much  more  anxious  about  the  style  than  about  the  amount  of 
information  which  is  packed  into  the  book.  So  also  of  a  book 
of  History  or  Science,  I  should  not  choose  that  which  comprised 
in  it  the  greatest  mass  of  facts,  but  that  which  was  best  written 
and  most  likely  to  encourage  the  student  to  desire  a  larger  and 
fuller  book.  As  to  French,  Latin  and  English  Grammars,  to 
books  on  Arithmetic  and  Geography,  it  concerns  us  much  more 
to  secure  a  good  logical  arrangement  of  rules;  proper  distinc- 
tion of  type  between  important  and  unimportant  facts,  between 
typical  rules  and  exceptional  rules;  with  good  searching  and 
well-arranged  exercises,  than  anything  else.  One  good  test  of  a 
Grammar  or  delectus  or  of  a  manual  of  any  kind  is  this:  Does 
it,  as  soon  as  it  has  helped  the  student  to  know  something,  in 
stantly  set  him  to  do  something  which  requires  him  to  use  that 


86          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

knowledge,  and  to  show  that  he  has  really  acquired  it?  E.g.  If 
it  explains  a  new  term,  does  it  require  the  learner  soon  to  use 
that  term?  If  it  states  a  rule,  does  it  give  him  instantly  occa- 
sion to  put  the  rule  in  practice?  If  it  points  out  a  new  logical 
or  grammatical  distinction,  does  it  challenge  him  forthwith  to 
find  new  instances  and  illustrations  of  that  distinction? 
These  seem  to  me  to  be  the  chief  purposes  which  a  book  can 
serve — to  supplement  oral  teaching,  not  to  furnish  an  excuse  for 
dispensing  with  it.  I  suppose  the  task  of  making  compendiums. 
and  trying  to  reduce  the  essence  of  a  good  many  books  into  a 
cheap  school  manual,  is  a  depressing  one.  At  all  events  school- 
books  must,  I  fear,  as  a  rule  be  placed  in  the  categoiy — let  us  say 
— of  uninspired  writings.  Their  authors  often  evince  a  great 
want  of  imagination  and  a  curious  incapacity  to  discriminate 
between  the  significant  and  insignificant,  between  the  little  and 
the  great.  That  is  precisely  the  deficiency  which  a  good  teacher 
has  to  supply,  and  it  can  only  be  supplied  by  vigorous  oral 
teaching. 

The  usefulness  and  need  of  School  Libraries  depend  very 
much  on  the  character  of  the  school.  In  every 
Boarding  School  they  are  indispensable;  as  children 
have  leisure  to  be  filled  and  tastes  to  be  formed,  and  a  life  to 
live  which  is  not  wholly  that  of  the  school.  But  even  in  Day 
Schools  there  is  great  need  for  such  adjuncts  to  the  materials 
for  instruction,  and  this  need  is  becoming  more  and  more  recog- 
nized. Until  a  good  library  is  attached  as  a  matter  of  course 
to  every  one  of  our  elementary  schools,  a  great  opportunity  of 
refining  the  taste  and  enlarging  the  knowledge  of  the  young 
will  continue  to  be  wasted,  and  the  full  usefulness  of  those  in- 
stitutions will  remain  unattained.  After  all,  it  is  the  main  busi- 
ness of  a  primary  school,  and  indeed  a  chief  part  of  the  business 
of  every  school,  to  awaken  a  love  of  reading,  and  to  give 
children  pleasant  associations  with  the  thought  of  books.  When 
once  a  strong  appetite  for  reading  has  been  excited  the  mere 
money  difficulty  of  providing  the  library  in  a  school  for  the 
poor  is  already  half  overcome.  For  subscriptions  from  children 


School  Libraries.  87 

and  their  parents,  gifts  from  kindly  friends,  are  obtainable 
without  much  difficulty,  whenever  a  teacher  makes  up  his 
mind  that  the  object  is  worth  attaining,  and  casts  about  in 
earnest  for  the  means  of  attaining  it. 

Now  granting  that  you  have  to  form  a  school  library,  or  that 
your  advice  is  asked  by  those  who  desire  to  pur-  How  to 
chase  or  give  one,  what  sort  of  books  will  you  choose  them, 
select?  That  is  a  question  worth  thinking  about.  In  the  first 
place,  you  will  get  books  of  reference,  good  manuals,  such 
as  you  need  for  amplifying  a  school  lesson.  You  constantly 
have  to  say  in  teaching:  "  There  is  a  fuller  acount  of  this  in- 
cident in  such  a  book."  "  There  arc  some  anecdotes  about  this 
animal,  or  a  poem  descriptive  of  this  place,  by  such  a  writer." 
Or  "  I  should  like  you  to  read  up  the  life  of  this  eminent  man 
before  we  have  our  next  lesson."  And  for  purposes  like  these 
it  is  of  great  importance  to  have  the  best  books  of  reference — 
books  fuller  and  larger  than  mere  school-books — within  reach. 
This  remark  applies  to  all  schools  alike.  But  besides  this,  it 
adds  to  the  value  of  a  child's  school-life,  if  something  can  be 
done  by  it  to  direct  his  reading  and  to  teach  him  how  to  fill  his 
leisure  profitably.  In  a  secondary  day-school,  to  which  pupils 
come  from  orderly  and  intelligent  homes,  this  particular  pur- 
pose is  of  less  importance  than  elsewhere,  because  it  may  be 
presumed  that  educated  parents  will  look  after  the  leisure  read- 
ing of  their  children.  It  is  in  schools  for  the  poor,  and  hi  all 
boarding-schools,  that  a  general  library  is  most  needed. 

Yet  in  making  the  selection  I  would  not,  in  the  first  place, 

fill  the  library  with  children's  books,  though  of   ^  . 

*  Not  always 

course  there  should  be  a  good  many  of  them,    children's 

Children  often  rebel,  and  with  good  cause,  against 
books  written  purposely  for  them  as  a  class.  Such  books  are 
often  too  obviously  written  down  to  the  level  of  a  child's  under- 
standing. The  childishness  and  simplicity  which  are  affected 
by  many  persons  who  write  children's  books  have  a  falsetto  ring 
about  them  which  an  intelligent  child  soon  detects.  He  is  no 
more  content  to  confine  his  reading  to  books  written  specially 


88          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

for  him  as  a  child  than  you  or  I  would  be  to  read  such  books  as 
are  considered  specially  appropriate  to  persons  of  our  age  and 
profession.  We  want,  and  a  child  wants,  to  read  some  books, 
not  specially  meant  for  us  or  the  class  to  which  we  belong,  but 
which  are  good  and  interesting  in  themselves,  and  were  meant 
for  the  whole  world.  Nor  would  I  confine  my  selection  of 
Nor  "good  library  books  to  what  are  technically  called  good 
books- '  books.  I  mean  to  books  which  are  consciously 

instructive  and  moral.  You  do  not  want  to  be  always  reading 
such  books  yourselves.  You  know,  even  those  of  you  who  are 
most  earnest  in  efforts  after  self -improvement,  that  you  do  not 
regulate  all  your  reading  with  the  distinct  intention  of  getting 
instruction  and  improving  your  mind.  Assume  this  to  be  true 
of  a  child.  Remember,  if  he  is  ever  to  love  reading,  he  must 
have  room  left  to  him  to  exercise  a  little  choice.  Think  ly>w 
rich  the  world  is,  how  much  there  is  to  be  known  about  it,  its 
structure,  its  products,  its  relation  to  other  worlds,  its  people, 
the  great  things  that  have  been  done  in  it,  the  great  speculations 
that  have  been  indulged  in  it,  the  very  varied  forms  in  which 
happiness  has  been  enjoyed  in  it.  And  do  not  forget  that,  be- 
yond the  region  of  mere  information  about  these  things,  there  is 
the  whole  domain  of  wonderland,  of  fancy,  of  romance,  of 
poetry,  of  dreams  and  fairy  tales.  Do  not  let  us  think  scorn  of 
that  pleasant  land,  or  suppose  that  all  the  fruit  in  the  garden  of 
the  Lord  grows  on  the  tree  of  knowledge.  Wonder,  curiosity, 
the  sense  of  the  infinite,  the  love  of  what  is  vast  and  remote,  of 
the  strange  and  the  picturesque — all  these  things  it  is  true  are 
not  knowledge  in  the  school  sense  of  the  word.  But  they  are 
capable  in  due  time  of  being  transformed  into  knowledge, — 
nay,  into  something  better  than  knowledge — into  wisdom  and 
insight  and  power. 

So  let  us  abstain  from  any  attempt  to  direct  a  child's  general 
reading  in  accordance  with  our  own  special  tastes.  Let  us  re- 
member that  all  children  have  not  the  same  intellectual  appe- 
tites, and  that  the  world  would  be  a  very  uninteresting  world  if 
they  had.  We  need  not  be  disappointed  if  even  our  favorite  pu- 


School  Museums.  89 


pils  show  reluctance  to  read  the  books  which  we  specially 

recommend,  and  to  admire  what  we  admire.     Of   , 

Large  toler- 
course,  we  have  first  to  take  care  that  all  lessons  are   ance  should 

diligently  finished,  and  that  all  due  use  is  made  of  1  for 


the  library  for  legitimate  school  purposes.  But  mental  appe- 
when  this  is  done,  and  you  come  to  consider  the 
kind  of  service  which  a  library  should  render  to  a  child  in  his 
hours  of  leisure,  and  for  his  own  enjoyment,  I  think  the  true  rule 
of  action  is  first  to  mak§  your  library  as  full  and  varied  as  you 
can,  then  to  exclude  from  it  resolutely  all  books  which  you  your- 
self are  sorry  you  ever  read,  or  would  be  ashamed  to  be  seen 
reading  —  all  books  which  for  any  reason  you  believe  to  be  harm- 
ful; and  when  you  have  done  this,  turn  the  scholar  loose  into  the 
library  and  let  him  read  what  and  how  he  likes.  Have  faith 
in  the  instincts  of  a  child,  and  in  the  law  of  natural  selection. 
Believe  that  for  him,  as  for  yourself,  it  is  true  that  any  book 
which  is  really  enjoyed,  which  enlarges  the  range  of  the 
thoughts,  which  fills  the  mind  with  sweet  fancies  or  glowing 
pictures,  which  makes  the  reader  feel  happier  and  richer,  is 
worth  reading,  even  though  it  serves  no  visible  purpose  as  part 
of  school  education. 

The  uses  to  which  School  Museums  may  be  put  are  manifold, 
but  are  not  all  obvious  at  first  sight.  It  is  mani-  school 
fest  that  if  Botany  is  taught,  a  collection  of  the  museums. 
wild  flowers  of  the  district,  properly  pressed  and  classified,  will 
be  a  useful  resource.  But  even  if  this  subject  is  not  systemati- 
cally taught,  such  a  collection,  with  carefully  prepared  speci- 
mens of  the  leaf,  the  flower,  the  fruit,  of  the  trees,  ferns  and 
grasses,  and  cereals  of  the  district,  when  properly  named,  will 
have  scarcely  less  interest  and  value.  Specimens  of  the  insects 
to  be  found  in  the  district,  of  the  stones  and  shells  from  the  sea- 
shore, of  the  material  employed  in  some  local  manufacture,  and 
of  its  condition  in  its  successive  stages;  illustrations  of  the 
geological  formation  of  the  district  ;  a  clay  or  plaster  model 
showing  the  conformation  of  the  neighboring  hills  and  valleys, 
drawings  or  specimens  illustrating  the  antiquities  and  historical 


90          The  School-room  and  its  Appliances. 

associations  of  near  places,  will  all  have  their  place  in  such  a 
collection.  When  once  a  suitable  receptacle  has  been  provided 
for  such  things,  and  arrangements  have  been  made,  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  curators  or  otherwise,  for  keeping  it  in  seemly 
condition,  it  is  surprising  to  observe  what  pride  the  scholars 
often  feel  in  it,  how  it  serves  to  keep  their  eyes  open  to  find 
new  and  suitable  objects,  and  how  glad  they  are  to  contribute 
to  it.  A  museum  of  this  kind  cannot  be  purchased  or  set  up 
all  at  once;  it  must  grow,  and  be  the  product  of  willing  work- 
ers and  observers.  Its  purpose  need  not  be  Avholly  scientific  or 
even  instructive.  It  may  with  advantage  be  made  the  depos- 
itory for  any  little  work  of  invention  or  art  which  the  scholars 
can  themselves  produce.  One  may  contribute  a  drawing, 
another  a  piece  of  needlework  unusually  well  finished,  another 
an  effort  at  design,  a  model  of  a  neighboring  church  or  castle, 
or  a  set  of  illustrations  of  some  form  of  manufacture  in  which 
his  father  is  engaged.  Every  scholar  may  be  encouraged  to 
leave  behind  him  before  quitting  school  some  little  memorial 
of  himself,  his  doings,  or  his  special  tastes.  A  mere  general 
museum  of  odds  and  ends  which  anybody  chooses  to  present  to 
the  school,  and  with  which  the  scholars  have  no  associations,  is 
of  little  worth.  However  small  your  collection,  it  should  be 
characteristic  of  the  school  and  of  its  special  studies,  its  history 
and  its  surroundings.  And  if  it  fulfils  this  condition,  it  will 
not  only  be  found  a  useful  adjunct  to  your  scientific  teaching, 
but  also  a  means  of  encouraging  the  development  of  any  special 
gift  the  scholars  may  possess,  and  of  increasing  their  loyalty  to 
the  school. 

We  shall,  in  connection  with  each  of  the  subjects  of  instruc- 
Costlyillus-  tion  hereafter  discussed,  refer  to  the  particular 
a™viysSthe  *  form  of  apparatus  or  material  aid  which  lends  it- 
best,  self  best  to  the  furtherance  of  the  teacher's  objects. 
But  one  general  observation  may  be  made  here.  New  and 
ingenious  forms  of  mechanical  aid  for  teaching  are  being  de- 
vised every  day,  and  publishers  and  instrument-makers  are  in- 
terested in  multiplying  them.  It  may  occur  to  some  of  us  that 


Costly  Illustrations  not  always  best.          91 

the  material  equipments  of  a  good  school  are  thus  becoming 
more  complex,  and  threatening  to  be  very  costly.  It  may 
partly  console  us  to  remember  that  the  elaborate  illustrations 
which  cost  most  money  are  not  necessarily  the  most  effective. 
A  good  copy  set  by  a  writing-master  is  often  more  useful  than 
an  engraved  copy.  A  rough  black  board  drawing  of  the  par- 
ticular river  or  county  which  you  are  describing  impresses  and 
interests  scholars  more  than  a  painted  map.  A  rude  model  in 
sand  or  clay,  made  up  in  sight  of  the  scholars,  will  illustrate 
the  set  of  a  glacier  or  the  formation  of  a  lake  better  than  any 
purchased  model.  To  count  the  panes  of  glass  in  a  window,  or 
the  pictures  on  the  wall,  is  not  less  instructive,  and  much  more 
interesting,  than  to  count  the  balls  on  an  abacus  or  frame.  In 
short,  illustrations  made  pro  Me  nice,  and  visibly  contrived  by 
the  teacher's  own  ingenuity  for  the  elucidation  of  the  particular 
truth  he  wants  to  teach,  are  often  found  to  serve  their  purpose 
much  more  effectually  than  the  manufactured  illustrations 
which  you  buy  at  shops. 

It  is,  after  all,  but  a  few  detached  suggestions  as  to  the  mate- 
rial surroundings  of  a  teacher,  and  as  to  school  equipment  gen- 
erally, that  we  have  thus  been  able  to  offer  you.  But  the  gen- 
eral impression  which  it  has  been  sought  to  convey  is  that  no 
amount  of  care  and  inventiveness  and  forethought  which  you 
are  able  to  devote  to  these  little  things  will  be  wasted,  and  that 
whatever  tends  to  make  the  school-room  brighter,  healthier, 
comelier,  more  orderly,  tends  to  economize  time  and  temper, 
and  to  diminish  the  friction  inseparable  from  a  laborious  school 
life.  Above  all,  you  cannot,  by  putting  yourself  into  the  hands 
of  publishers,  instrument-makers,  or  even  of  lecturers  on  teach- 
ing, escape  from  the  responsibility  of  looking  at  each  of  these 
problems  with  fresh  eyes;  and  of  determining  how  far  the 
helps  and  contrivances  which  other  people  have  used  are  avail- 
able for  your  own  special  aims  and  special  needs,  and  in  what 
way  they  may  be  best  adapted  to  them. 


92  Discipline. 


IV.    DISCIPLINE. 

I  HAVE  thought  it  right  to  dedicate  one  of  these  lectures  to 
The  teacher  the  consideration  of  a  teacher's  character  rather  as 
isL^^aSd1  a  ru^er  an(*  administrator  than  as  an  instructor, 
ruler.  For  it  need  not  be  said  that  he  who  can  teach  but 

cannot  govern  works  at  an  enormous  disadvantage.  Perfect 
discipline  in  a  class  or  a  school  is  an  indispensable  condition  of 
successful  teaching.  It  is  necessary  for  the  pupils,  not  only 
because  by  it  they  will  learn  in  a  given  time  twice  as  much  and 
twice  as  easily;  but  because  one  of  the  things  they  come  to 
school  to  acquire  over  and  above  certain  arts  and  accomplish- 
ments which  are  generally  termed  education,  is  the  practice  of 
obedience.  The  habit  of  subjugating  one's  own  impulses,  of 
constantly  recognizing  the  supremacy  of  law,  and  bringing  our 
actions  into  harmony  with  it,  is  one  of  the  first  conditions  of  an 
orderly  and  well-disciplined  life.  He  who  does  not  at  least 
acquire  that  at  school  has  been  under  instruction  to  little  pur- 
pose, whatever  progress  he  may  have  made  in  technical  learn- 
ing. And  it  is  of  no  less  consequence  to  the  teacher.  His  own 
health,  his  temper,  and  his  happiness  suffer  grievously  if  he 
cannot  command  perfect  obedience.  One  may  secure  it  by 
personal  influence  and  another  by  force,  and  it  will  be  easy  for 
us  to  see  which  is  the  better  method  of  the  two.  But  by  some 
means  or  other  it  must  be  had:  it  is  better  to  gain  it  by  force 
than  not  at  all.  For  without  it  the  school  is  a  place  of  torment  to 
all  concerned,  and  must  always  remain  inefficient  for  every 
purpose  which  it  professes  to  serve. 

It  may  clear  the  ground  a  little  if  I  say  how  obedience  is  not 
to  be  gained.  You  cannot  get  it  by  demanding  or  claiming  it; 


How  to  Secure   Obedience.  93 

by  declaring  that  you  will  have  it;  or  even  by  explaining  to  your 
scholars  how  useful  and  indispensable  it  is.  Obedi-  Obedience 
ence  is  a  habit,  and  must  be  learned  like  other  hab-  b^demaru^ 
its,  rather  by  practice  than  by  theory;  by  being  mg  it- 
orderly,  not  by  talking  about  order.  There  are*  some  things  on 
which  it  is  well  to  draw  out  the  intelligence  and  sympathies  of 
a  child,  and  to  make  him  understand  the  full  reason  and  motive 
of  what  you  do.  But  on  this  point  I  would  not,  except  on 
rare  and  special  occasions,  enter  into  any  discussions,  or  offer 
any  explanations.  All  entreaty — "  Now  do  give  me  your  atten- 
tion;"— all  self-assertion—"  I  willhave  order;" — all  threats — "  If 
you  don't  attend  to  me,  I  will  punish  you;"  are  in  themselves 
signs  of  weakness.  They  beget  and  propagate  disobedience; 
they  never  realty  correct  it.  All  noise  and  shouting  aggravate 
the  evil,  and  utterly  fail  to  produce  more  than  a  temporary  lull 
at  best. 

"  He  who  in  quest  of  silence  '  silence '  hoots, 
Is  apt  to  make  the  hubbub  he  imputes." 

All  talk  about  discipline  in  a  school  is  in  fact  mischievous.  To 
say  "  I  ought  to  be  obeyed  "  is  to  assume  that  a  child's  know- 
ledge is  to  be  the  measure  of  his  obedience,  to  invite  him  to 
discuss  the  grounds  of  your  authority,  perhaps  to  dispute  it. 
A  nation,  we  know,  is  in  an  abnormal  state  while  its  members 
are  debating  the  rights  of  man  or  the  fundamental  principles  of 
government.  There  should  be  underlying  all  movement  and 
political  activity,  a  settled  respect  for  law  and  a  feeling  that  law 
once  made  must  be  obeyed.  So  no  family  life  of  a  right  kind 
is  possible,  if  the  members  ever  treat  the  authority  of  the  parent 
as  an  open  question.  The  duty  of  obeying  is  not  so  much  a 
thing  to  be  learned  per  se.  It  must  be  learned  before  the  learn- 
ing of  anything  else  becomes  possible.  It  is  like  food  or  air  in 
relation  to  our  bodily  lives;  not  a  thing  to  be  sought  for  and 
possessed  for  itself,  but  an  antecedent  condition,  without  which 
all  other  possessions  become  impossible.  So  it  is  not  well  in 
laying  down  a  school  rule  to  say  anything  about  the  penalty 


94  Discipline. 

which  will  fall  upon  those  who  transgress  it.  Show  that  you 
do  not  expect  transgression;  and  then,  if  it  comes,  treat  it — as 
far  as  you  can  with  perfect  candor  and  honesty  do  so — as  some- 
thing which  surprises  and  disappoints  you;  and  for  which  you 
must  apply  sorffe  remedy  rather  for  the  scholar's  sake  than  your 
own. 

Now  the  first  way  to  secure  obedience  to  commands  is  to 
Commands  make  every  rule  and  regulation  you  lay  down  the 
considered  subject  of  careful  previous  thought.  Determine 
before  they  on  the  best  course  and  be  sure  you  are  right. 
Then  you  will  gain  confidence  in  yourself,  and 
without  such  confidence  authority  is  impossible.  Be  sure  that 
if  you  have  any  secret  misgiving  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  order 
you  give  or  as  to  your  own  power  ultimately  to  enforce  it,  that 
misgiving  will  reveal  itself  in  some  subtle  way,  and  your  order 
will  not  be  obeyed.  An  unpremeditated  or  an  indefinite  com- 
mand— one  the  full  significance  of  which  you  yourself  have  not 
understood— of  ten  proves  to  be  a  mistake,  and  has  to  be  retract- 
ed. And  every  time  you  retract  an  order  your  authority  is 
weakened.  Never  give  a  command  unless  you  are  sure  you  can 
enforce  it,  nor  unless  you  mean  to  see  that  it  is  obeyed.  You 
must  not  shrink  from  any  trouble  which  may  be  necessary  to 
carry  out  a  regulation  you  have  once  laid  down.  It  may  in- 
volve more  trouble  than  you  were  prepared  for;  but  that 
trouble  you  are  bound  to  take,  in  your  scholar's  interest  and  in 
your  own.  "We  must  not  evade  the  consequences  of  our  own 
orders,  even  when  we  did  not  foresee  or  even  desire  all  of  them. 
The  law  once  laid  down  should  be  regarded  as  a  sacred  thing, 
binding  the  lawgiver  as  much  as  the  subject.  Every  breach  of 
it  on  the  scholar's  part,  and  all  wavering  or  evasion  in  the  en- 
forcement of  it  on  your  own,  puts  a  premium  on  future  dis- 
obedience and  goes  far  to  weaken  in  the  whole  of  your  pupils 
a  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  law. 

And  when  rules  and  orders  descend  to  details,  your  super- 
vision should  be  so  perfect  that  you  will  certainly  know  whe- 
ther in  all  these  details  the  orders  have  been  obeyed  or  not. 


Over-governing.  95 


Unless  you  can  make  arrangements  for  detecting  a  breach  of 
law  with  certainty,  do  not  lay  down  a  law  at  all.  It  may  be 
replied  to  this,  that  an  attitude  of  habitual  suspicion  is  not  favor 
able  to  the  cultivation  of  self-respect  in  a  scholar,  and  that  you 
want  often  to  trust  him  and  show  you  rely  on  his  honor.  True. 
The  development  of  the  conscience  and  of  the  sentiment  of 
honor  is  one  of  your  highest  duties;  but  in  cases  where  you  can 
safely  appeal  to  the  sense  of  honor,  it  is  not  a  command  which 
is  wanted,  but  a  wish,  a  principle,  a  request.  You  explain  that 
a  certain  course  of  action  is  right  or  desirable  or  honorable  in 
itself;  and  you  say  to  your  scholar,  "Now  I  think  you  see 
what  I  mean;  I  shall  trust  you  to  do  it."  That  is,  you  part  in 
some  degree  with  your  own  prerogative  as  a  governor,  and  in- 
vite him  to  take  a  share  in  his  self-government.  But  you  do 
not  put  your  wishes  into  the  form  of  a  command  in  this  case. 
Commands  are  for  those  in  whom  the  capacity  for  self-com- 
mand is  imperfectly  developed;  and  in  their  case  vigilance 
does  not  imply  suspicion:  it  is  for  them  absolutely  needful  to 
know  that  when  you  say  a  thing  has  to  be  done,  you  mean  for 
certain  to  know  whether  it  is  done  or  not.  Involuntary  and 
mechanical  obedience  has  to  be  learned  first;  the  habit  of  con- 
scious, voluntary  rational  obedience  will  come  by  slow  de- 
grees. 

And  let  us  not  forget  that  admirable  rule  so  often  quoted 
from  Jean  Paul  Richter,  "Pas  trop  gouverner;"  Overeovem- 
we  should  not  over-govern,  we  should  never  multi-  ment  to  be 
ply  commands,  nor  needlessly  repeat  one.  Our 
governing  force  should  be  regarded  by  us  as  a  bank  reserve,  on 
which  we  should  be  afraid  to  draw  too  often,  because  it  may 
become  exhausted.  Every  good  ruler  economizes  power,  and 
never  puts  it  all  forth  at  once.  Children  should  feel,  when 
they  sec  us  exercising  authority,  that  there  is  a  great  reserve  of 
unused  strength  and  resolution  behind,  which  they  can  neither 
see  nor  measure.  It  is  not  the  visible  exercise  of  power  which 
impresses  children  most,  but  the  unseen,  which  affects  their 
imagination,  and  to  which  they  can  assign  no  limit.  And  this 


96  Discipline. 

is  most  fully  felt  when  the  manner  of  putting  forth  strength  is 
habitually  calm  and  quiet,  when  you  abstain  from  giving  com- 
mands in  regard  to  things  which  are  indifferent,  and  when 
such  commands  as  you  give  are  few  and  short.  "  Even  a  grown 
man,"  says  Richter,  "whom  some  one  should  follow  all  day 
long  with  movable  pulpit  and  stool  of  confession,  from  which 
to  hurl  sermons  and  anathemas,  could  never  attain  any  real 
activity  and  moral  freedom.  How  much  less  then  a  weak 
child,  who  at  every  step  in  life  must  be  entangled  with  a  '  stop,' 
'run,'  'be  quiet,'  '  do  this,  do  that '?  Your  watch  stops  while 
you  wind  it  up,  and  you  everlastingly  wind  up  children  and 
never  let  them  go."  We  have  not  to  think  of  a  scholar  merely 
as  material  put  into  our  hands  to  mould  and  manipulate,  but 
rather  as  a  responsible  human  being,  whom  we  are  so  to  help, 
that  as  soon  as  possible  he  may  regulate  his  own  life,  and  be  a 
law  unto  himself.  Keep  clearly  in  view  your  own  responsi- 
bilities, but  the  less  display  you  make  of  your  disciplinary  ap- 
paratus, and  the  more  freedom  you  can  leave  to  the  pupil,  the 
better.  Reduce  as  far  as  possible  the  number  of  formal  rules; 
and  remember  that  the  perfection  of  governmentis_to_effect  the 
maximum  result  with  the  minimum  of  visible  machinery. 

And  yet  you  will  gain  much  in  a  school  by  cultivating  the 
Drill -uni  habit  of  order  and  exact  obedience  about  little 
mechanical  things.  There  are  right  and  beautiful  ways  and 
Ine'  there  are  clumsy  and  confused  ways — of  sitting 
down  at  a  desk,  of  moving  from  one  place  to  another,  of  hand- 
ling and  opening  books,  of  cleaning  slates,  of  giving  out  pens 
and  paper,  of  entering  and  leaving  school.  Petty  as  each  of 
these  acts  is  separately,  they  are  important  collectively,  and  the 
best  teachers  habitually  reduce  all  these  movements  to  drill, 
and  require  them  to  be  done  simultaneously,  and  with  finished 
and  mechanical  exactness.  Much  of  this  drill  is  conducted  in 
some  good  schools  by  signs  only,  not  merely  because  it  is  easy 
so  to  economize  noise  and  voice-power,  but  also  because  it 
makes  the  habit  of  mechanical  obedience  easier.  And  children 
once  accustomed  to  such  a  regime  always  like  it— nay,  even  de- 


Uses  of  Mechanical  Drill.  97 

light  in  it.  I  have  seen  many  schools,  both  small  and  large,  in 
which  all  the  little  movements  from  class  to  class  were  con- 
ducted with  military  precision;  in  which  even  so  little  a  thing 
as  the  passing  of  books  from  hand  to  hand,  the  gathering  up  of 
pens,  or  the  taking  of  places  at  the  dinner-table,  of  hats  or 
bonnets  from  their  numbered  places  in  the  hall,  was  done  with 
a  rhythmical  beauty,  sometimes  to  musical  accompaniment, 
which  not  only  added  to  the  picturesqueness  of  the  school  life, 
and  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  scholars,  but  also  contributed  much 
to  their  moral  training  and  to  their  sense  of  the  beauty  of  obedi- 
ence. And  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  a  wise  thing  for  a  teacher 
to  devise  a  short  code  of  rules  for  the  exact  and  simultaneous 
performance  of  all  the  minor  acts  and  movements  of  school 
life,  and  to  drill  his  scholars  into  habitual  attention  to  them. 

Does  it  seem  to  some  of  you  that  there  is  a  little  inconsistency 
between  the  last  two  counsels  I  have  ventured  to  Limits  to  its 
give  you — the  one,  that  you  should  not  waste  usefulness. 
power  by  a  needless  multiplication  of  rules;  the  other,  that  you 
should  turn  the  little  ones  into  machines,  even  in  regard  to 
such  matters  as  sitting  and  standing  at  a  desk,  or  opening  a 
book?  There  is  indeed,  if  you  will  look  at  it,  no  inconsistency 
between  these  two  views  of  your  duty.  There  is  a  sphere  of 
our  life  in  which  it  is  desirable  to  cultivate  independence  and 
freedom;  and  there  is  another  in  which  it  is  essential  that  we 
should  learn  to  part  with  that  independence  for  the  sake  of 
attaining  some  end  which  is  desirable  for  others  as  well  as  for 
ourselves.  In  the  development  of  individual  character  and  in- 
telligence, the  more  room  we  can  leave  for  spontaneous  action 
the  better;  but  when  we  are  members  of  a  community,  the 
healthy  corporate  life  of  that  community  requires  of  us  an 
abnegation  of  self.  The  soldier  in  an  army  must  qua,  that 
army  forego  his  personal  volition,  and  become  part  of  a  great 
machine,  which  is  working  towards  some  greater  end  than 
could  possibly  be  achieved  if  he  retained  complete  autonomy. 
And  every  one  among  us  is  called,  as  citizen,  as  member  of  a 
council  or  municipality,  or  public  company,  to  work  with 
7 


98  Discipline. 

others  towards  ends  which  require  unity  of  action,  and  which 
are  incompatible  with  the  assertion  of  our  individual  rights. 
It  is  then  for  this  class  of  duties  that  school  should  in  some 
measure  prepare  every  child.  He  is  in  an  artificial  community 
which  has  a  life  and  needs  of  its  own,  and  in  so  far  as  he  con- 
tributes to  make  up  this  school  life,  he  may  be  well  content  to 
suppress  himself  and  to  become  a  machine.  There  are  times  in 
life  for  asserting  our  individuality,  and  there  are  times  for 
effacing  it.  And  a  good  school  should  provide  means  whereby 
it  may  be  seen  when  and  how  we  may  do  both. 

This  sense  of  corporate  life  and  responsibility  so  essential  to 
The  cor-  the  makmg  of  a  good  citizen  may  be  further  culti- 
poratelife  vated  by  providing,  as  far  as  possible,  that  the 

of  a  scliool 

school  shall  have  something  in  it  for  the  scholar 
to  be  proud  of;  some  function  or  ritual  in  which  he  shall  be 
specially  interested,  and  in  which  he  can  sustain  an  honorable 
part.  I  do  not  like  a  needless  multiplication  of  unmeaning 
offices  in  a  school,  but  every  little  function,  such  as  that  of 
curator  of  the  books,  or  the  copies,  or  the  apparatus  of  a  class, 
is  in  its  way  useful,  if  it  makes  the  elder  scholar  feel  that  he 
can  be  helpful  to  the  younger,  or  that  he  can  contribute  some- 
thing to  the  beauty  or  to  the  repute  of  the  school  as  a  whole. 
It  is  here  as  with  the  games  in  which  the  victory  is  not  for  an 
individual,  but  for  the  side,  the  company  or  the  school  to  which 
the  player  belongs;  the  very  act  of  putting  forth  effort  on  be- 
half of  the  community  tends  powerfully  to  check  selfishness 
and  egoism,  and  to  make  the  scholar  conscious  that  the  com- 
munity has  interests  into  which,  for  a  time,  it  is  both  a  duty 
and  a  privilege  for  him  completely  to  merge  his  own. 

Some  there  may  be  who  as  they  hear  me  now  are  saying  to 
Difference  themselves,  This  may  be  true  in  the  case  of  large 
between  schools,  but  mine  is  a  small  sheltered  establish- 

ment, where  we  take  great  pains  with  the  formation  of  indi- 
vidual character,  and  where  we  seek  to  make  the  discipline 
more  like  that  of  a  family.  Now  let  us  try  to  clear  our  minds 
of  illusions.  It  is  not  well  to  make  believe  that  a  school,  .eyen 


School  Discipline  not  that  of  Home.          99 

a  small  school,  is  a  family;  because  it  is  not  one.  Your  re- 
lations to  your  pupils  can  never  be  those  of  a  ch  ldi  . 
parent,  and  any  pretence  that  they  are  has  an  un-  pline  and 
reality  about  it  which  very  soon  becomes  evident 
both  to  them  and  to  yourself.  The  fact  is  that  a  child  is  sent 
to  school  to  obtain  a  kind  of  discipline  which  is  impossible  in  a 
family,  and  to  learn  many  things  which  he  could  not  learn  at 
home.  The  moral  basis  of  family  life  is  affection.  The  moral 
basis  of  school  life,  as  of  that  of  all  large  communities,  is  jus- 
tice. It  is  not  difficult  in  a  well-ordered  home  to  learn  courtesy, 
kindness,  the  sanctity  and  the  happiness  of  self-sacrifice,  be- 
cause those  virtues  have  to  be  exercised  towards  those  whom 
we  know  and  love.  But  in  a  school  we  are  called  on  to  respect 
the  rights  and  consult  the  feelings  of  people  whom  we  do  not 
love,  and  whom  we  scarcely  know.  And  this  is  a  great  part 
of  education.  It  can  only  be  attained  when  the  corporate  spirit 
is  rightly  called  forth,  when  the  equal  claims  of  others  are  fully 
recognized,  and  when  opportunities  are  offered  for  losing  the 
sense  of  personal  claims  in  those  of  comradeship,  and  for 
evincing  pride  in  the  perfection  and  prosperity  of  the  school  as 
an  institution. 
And  in  governing,  it  is  of  the  last  importance  that  we  should 

well  consider  the  nature  of  the  being  whom  we 

,     ,         ,  ,     ,  ,  .  .         Child  nature 

want  to  control,  and  not  demand  of  him  an  im-   to  be  studied 


possible  standard  of  virtue.  A  little  child  has  not 
your  seriousness,  nor  your  sense  of  duty,  nor  your 
capacity  for  sitting  still.  He  would  be  a  very  curious,  almost 
an  unpleasant  phenomenon  if  he  had.  On  the  contrary,  nature 
makes  him  physically  restless,  very  curious,  mobile,  and  in- 
quisitive, and  exceedingly  deficient  in  reverence.  And  these 
qualities  should  be  taken  for  granted  and  allowed  for,  not  set 
down  as  faults.  Provision  should  be  made  for  giving  lawful 
vent  to  his  personal  activity,  and  if  such  provision  be  not 
made,  and  he  is  called  on  to  maintain  a  confined  posture  for 
an  unreasonable  time,  his  restlessness  and  disobedience  are  the 
teacher's  fault,  not  his.  Let  us  take  for  granted  that  in  every 


100  Discipline. 

fault  of  a  child  there  is  an  element  of  good,  "  would  men  ob- 
servingly  distil  it  out,"  that  every  act  of  mischief  he  is  guilty 
of  is  only  an  example  of  perfectly  healthy  and  legitimate  ac- 
tivity, accidentally  misdirected.  And  above  all  let  us  take  care 
not  to  measure  his  fault  by  the  inconvenience  which  it  causes 
us,  but  rather  by  considering  the  motive  and  the  causes  of  it. 
Some  of  the  little  wrong  acts  of  a  child  which  bring  the  most 
annoyance  to  a  teacher  and  try  his  temper  most  are  precisely 
those  which  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  moralist  are  least 
blameworthy — talking  at  unreasonable  times,  destructiveness, 
untidiness,  noise.  These  things  have  to  be  checked  of  course. 
But  do  not  let  us  confuse  the  conscience  of  a  child  by  exag- 
gerating their  seriousness,  or  by  treating  offences  against  school 
rules  as  if  they  were  breaches  of  the  moral  order  of  the  uni- 
verse. Consider  what  are  the  natural  instincts  of  a  child,  and 
how  unformed  his  moral  standard  is,  and  you  will  see  that 
relatively  to  him  offences  of  this  kind  are  not  crimes,  though 
relatively  to  you  and  to  the  school  they  may  be  serious  annoy- 
ances. 

After  all  the  great  safeguard  for  good  and  happy  discipline 
Fill  the  time  m  a  school  is  to  fill  the  time  with  work.  If  a 
with  work.  c^^  ^  to  jjave  ^  interval  of  leisure,  let  it  be  in 
the  play-room  or  ground,  where  relaxation  is  permissible,  and 
even  noise  is  not  a  sin.  But  let  him  have  no  intervals  of  lei 
sure  in  school.  There,  and  in  school  time,  where  play  is  not 
permitted,  let  work  be  systematically  prescribed.  You  will 
of  course  take  care  that,  the  work  is  duly  varied,  that  it  does 
not  put  too  great  a  strain  on  one  set  of  muscles,  or  on  one 
set  of  faculties;  you  will  see  that  light  mechanical  work 
alternates  duly  with  serious  intellectual  application.  But 
work  of  some  kind — work  which  is  duly  superintended,  and 
which  cannot  be  evaded,  should  be  provided  for  every 
minute  of  the  school  day.  "Let  every  child  have,"  said 
Joseph  Lancaster,  "  at  all  times,  something  to  do  and  a  mo- 
tive for  doing  it." 

No   doubt  this  business  of   maintaining  discipline  comes 


The  Law  of  Habit.  101 

more   easily  to  some   than   others.      There    are   some   who 
seem  qualified  and  designed  by  nature  to  exer-  The  faculty 
cise  ascendency  over  others.    They  are  born  like   natCurSfor ac-' 
Hamlet's  father  with  quired. 

"  An  eye  like  Mars,  to  threaten  and  command," 

or  better  still  they  are  naturally  endowed  with  that  sweet  gra- 
ciousness  and  attractiveness  of  manner  which  at  once  win  con- 
fidence, and  predispose  the  hearers  to  listen  and  obey.  Of  such 
a  teacher  her  pupil  may  often  say  as  Richard  Steele  once  said 
in  the  finest  compliment  ever  paid  to  a  lady,  "  That  to  love  her 
is  a  liberal  education."  And  yet  those  of  us  who  are  not  thus 
equipped  by  nature  have  no  right  to  be  discouraged.  Every 
one  may  acquire  the  power  of  ruling  others  by  steadily  setting 
himself  to  do  so,  by  thinking  well  over  his  orders  before  he 
gives  them,  by  giving  them  without  faltering  or  equivocation, 
by  obeying  them  himself,  by  determining  in  every  case,  and 
at  whatever  cost,  to  see  them  obeyed,  and  above  all  by 
taking  care  that  they  are  reasonable  and  right,  and  properly 
adapted  to  the  nature  of  childhood,  to  its  weaknesses  and  its 
needs. 

Since  obedience  and  fixed  attention  are  habits,  they  are  sub- 
ject to  the  same  law  which  is  found  to  regulate  all  The  law  of 
other  habits.  And  this  law  is  very  curious  and  ^bit- 
worth  attention.  In  virtue  of  it  we  find  that  any  one  act 
which  we  perform  to-day  is  easier  to  perform  to-morrow,  and 
easier  still  next  day,  and  afterwards  becomes  so  mechanical  by 
frequent  repetition  that  in  due  time  it  is  difficult  for  us  not  to 
do  it.  "We  may  observe  this  in  ourselves,  in  all  the  little  manual 
acts  which  we  perform  every  day:  they  become  exactly  like  one 
another  even  without  any  conscious  desire  on  our  part  that  they 
should  be  like.  Our  handwriting  for  instance  becomes  so  fixed, 
that  it  is  positively  difficult  for  us  to  disguise  it.  And  on  the 
other  hand  all  acts  which  we  leave  undone  become  daily  more 
difficult;  the  habit  of  not  doing  becomes  as  confirmed  as  that  of 
doing.  Bishop  Butler  has  analyzed  this  law  of  habit  at  much 


102  Discipline. 

length,  and  with  great  subtlety,  and  he  proves  that  all  our 
habits  whether  mental,  bodily  or  moral  are  strengthened  by  re- 
peated acts.  The  practice  of  speaking  the  truth,  of  temperance, 
of  charity,  or  of  prompt  obedience,  becomes  strengthened  every 
time  it  is  put  into  action.  The  question  is  as  old  as  Aristotle, 
Does  character  produce  actions,  or  do  actions  produce  charac- 
ter? Is  for  example  a  man  a  temperate  man  because  he  ab- 
stains from  excessive  indulgence;  or  does  he  so  abstain  because 
he  is  a  temperate  and  virtuous  man?  Now  no  doubt  either  of 
these  questions  might  in  a  sense  be  answered  in  the  affirmative; 
because  habit  and  character  act  and  react  on  each  other.  But 
in  the  long-run  it  is  far  truer  to  say  that  habits  make  character, 
than  to  say  character  makes  habits.  Character  has  been  not 
improperly  called  a  bundle  of  habits.  We  are  what  we  are  not 
so  much  because  of  what  we  wish  to  be,  nor  of  any  sentiments 
we  have  formed,  but  simply  by  virtue  of  what  we  are  doing 
every  day.  And  if,  as  is  probably  true  of  all  of  us,  we  are  con- 
stantly saddened  by  noticing  how  far  we  fall  short  of  our  own 
ideal,  there  is  but  one  remedy;  it  is  to  place  ourselves  in  new 
conditions,  to  brace  ourselves  up  to  some  new  effort,  and  to 
form  a  new  set  of  habits.  Mere  meditation  on  what  we  wish 
to  be,  good  resolutions,  clear  perception  of  the  difference 
between  right  and  wrong,  are  of  little  use  unless  they  show 
themselves  in  acts.  Nay,  they  are  worse  than  useless.  Hear 
Butler:  "  Going  over  the  theory  of  virtue  in  one's  mind,  talk- 
ing well  and  drawing  fine  pictures  of  it:  this  is  so  far  from 
necessarily  or  certainly  conducing  to  form  a  habit  of  it  in  him 
who  thus  employs  himself  that  it  may  harden  the  mind  in  a 
contrary  course.  .  .  .  For,  from  our  very  faculty  of  habit,  pas- 
sive impressions  by  being  repeated  grow  weaker.  Thoughts 
by  often  passing  through  the  mind  are  felt  less  sensibly. 
Being  accustomed  to  danger  begets  intrepidity,  i.e.  lessens 
fear,  and  to  distress  lessens  the  emotion  of  pity.  And  from 
these  two  observations  together,  that  practical  habits  are  formed 
and  strengthened  by  repeated  acts  and  that  passive  impressions 
grow  weaker  by  being  repeated,  it  may  follow  that  motives 


Recreation.  103 


and  excitements  (to  right  action)  are  continually  less  and  less 
consciously  felt,  even  as  the  active  habits  strengthen." 

Now,  I  know  of  no  more  fruitful  or  far-reaching  truth  in  its 
bearing  on  a  teacher's  work  than  this,  nor  one  on  its  bearing  on 
which  he  will  do  well  oftener  to  reflect.  I  say  sch°o1  work- 
nothing  of  its  bearing  on  your  own  personal  character,  on  your 
capacity  for  work,  on  the  steadiness  and  the  method  of  your 
reading;  but  think  for  a  moment  what  it  means  in  relation  to 
the  pupils  who  come  to  you  for  instruction.  It  means  that 
every  time  they  come  into  your  presence  the  habit  of  obedient 
attention  is  being  either  confirmed  or  weakened.  It  means 
that  every  unregarded  counsel  or  order  of  yours  falls  more  in- 
effectually on  the  ear  than  the  last.  It  means  that  prompt  and 
exact  obedience  if  insisted  on  in  little  things  becomes  available 
for  great  things;  it  means  in  short  that  on  the  daily  regime  of 
your  school  depends  the  whole  difference  for  life,  in  the  case  of 
your  pupils,  between  a  wandering  loose  slipshod  style  of  think- 
ing and  of  reading,  and  an  orderly  and  observant  mind,  one 
accustomed  to  put  forth  all  its  best  powers  and  to  bring  them 
to  bear  on  any  object  worthy  of  pursuit.  And  what  a  profound 
difference  this  is!  It  is  only  when  we  try  to  realize  it  and  to 
see  it  in  relation  to  our  own  life,  and  to  the  lives  of  the  people 
who  are  struggling  and  failing  around  us,  that  the  true  signifi- 
cance of  early  drill  and  discipline  becomes  apparent  to  us. 

The  sports  and  recreations  of  childhood  come  fairly  within 

the  province  of  a  schoolmaster  and  deserve  his 

_.  Recreation, 

careful  thought.    But  it  would  be  easy  to  err  on 

the  side  of  over-regulation  and  too  minute  direction  on  this 
point.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  healthy  and  really  useful  play 
that  it  should  be  spontaneous.  What  children  are  learning — 
and  they  are  learning  much — in  play,  ought  to  be  learned  un- 
consciously, and  without  any  suspicion  that  they  are  being 
drilled  and  disciplined.  Their  own  fresh  instincts  arc  here  the 
safest  guides  to  you,  when  you  want  to  supply  them  with  rec- 
reation. The  toys  which  they  like  best  are  not  merely  objects 
to  look  at,  such  as  would  gratify  the  taste  of  older  persons. 


104  Discipline. 

The  capacity  for  admiration  is  soon  exhausted  in  children. 
They  like  best  something  to  handle,  to  arrange,  to  derange,  and 
to  re-arrange;  a  doll  which  can  be  dressed  and  undressed,  a 
house  of  bricks  which  can  be  built  up  and  pulled  down;  a  tool 
which  can  be  actually  used;  a  machine  model  or  a  puzzle  which 
will  take  to  pieces.  It  is  not  the  beauty  or  the  costliness  of  a 
toy  which  gives  permanent  pleasure  to  a  child,  but  the  posses- 
sion of  some  object,  however  rude,  which  calls  into  exercise  his 
faculties  of  invention,  of  tactual  and  physical  activity,  and  even 
of  destructiveness.  For  destructiveness  is  not  wholly  a  vice. 
It  is  in  its  way  a  symptom  of  curiosity  and  of  inquisitiveness, 
of  desire  to  know  what  a  thing  is  made  of,  and  how  it  is  made. 
And  this  after  all  is  the  true  philosophic  instinct;  without  it  we 
should  have  no  great  inventors,  and  make  little  or  no  advance 
in  science.  We  must  not  repress  this  instinct  because  some  of 
its  manifestations  are  apt  to  be  inconvenient  to  us.  It  is  our 
business  to  take  the  instinct  for  granted,  to  recognize  its  useful- 
ness and  to  provide  due  scope  for  its  exercise.  This  is  now 
often  done  in  great  public  schools,  by  attaching  to  them  work- 
shops, in  which  boys  who  have  a  mechanical  turn  are  allowed 
to  learn  the  use  of  tools  and  a  turning-lathe,  to  make  the  ap- 
paratus used  in  the  lessons  on  science  as  well  as  boxes  and  other 
useful  articles  for  themselves.  . 

Regular  gymnastic  and  calisthenic  exercises,  graduated  and 

arranged  on  a  system,  have  their  value,  though 
Gymnastics.  J  . 

they  are  for  several  reasons  less  in  favor  in  Eng- 
lish than  in  French  and  German  schools.  A  covered  gymna- 
sium, with  cross-bars,  ropes  and  poles  for  leaping  and  climb- 
ing, is  a  useful  appendage  to  every  school.  But  it  is  not  well 
to  rely  too  much  on  this  artificial  help.  Most  good  English 
teachers  prefer  to  let  nature  have  freer  play,  and  suggest  her 
own  form  of  gymnastics.  The  movements  of  a  healthy  child 
in  running,  in  leaping,  in  rowing,  in  swimming,  in  throwing  a 
ball,  in  achieving  some  object  which  he  cares  to  attain,  are 
quite  as  valuable  as  the  regulated  preconcerted  set  of  move- 
ments of  a  professor  of  gymnastics,  and  much  more  interesting. 


More  Exercises  Needed  for  Girls.          105 

Taking  a  constitutional  walk,  for  walking  and  for  exercise 
sake,  is,  as  we  all  know,  less  enjoyable,  and  even  less  invigorat- 
ing, than  walking  to  some  place  we  want  to  go  to.  So  a  child 
likes  better  to  achieve  some  result,  to  overcome  some  difficulty, 
than  to  go  through  a  set  of  exercises  which  are  of  no  value  ex- 
cept as  exercises,  and  which  lead  to  nothing  in  which  he  is  in- 
terested. 

The  need  of  free  animal  pastime  is  already  so  fully  recog- 
nized in  Boys'  schools,  that  there  is  some  danger  Over  esti- 
of  overestimating  its  importance  as  an  element  in  igyjfexercises 
school  life.  Considering  that  it  is,  at  any  rate,  the  for  boys- 
first  business  of  a  school  to  encourage  learning,  and  develop 
mental  power,  it  is  rather  a  discredit  to  some  of  our  great 
schools  that  so  large  a  proportion  of  time  and  thought  should 
be  devoted  to  athletics;  and  that  success  in  cricket  and  football 
and  rowing  should  so  often  be  valued  as  much  as  intellectual 
distinction.  "We  are  in  danger  of  presenting  boys  with  a  false 
ideal  of  manliness,  when  we  lead  them  to  suppose  that  they 
come  to  school  merely  to  become  healthy  and  robust.  Let  us 
by  all  means  place  scholars  in  conditions  favorable  to  the  high- 
est physical  activity  and  development,  but  do  not  let  us  so  mis- 
take the  true  proportions  of  things  as  to  exalt  mere  healthy 
animalism  into  a  school  accomplishment  or  a  moral  virtue. 
The  publicity  and  show  often  attendant  on  the  exhibition  of 
athletic  sports  in  a  school  may  easily  be  carried  to  a  mis- 
chievous extent.  It  need  not  be  said  that  we  are  in  no  such 
danger  in  schools  for  girls.  There,  the  great  fault  More  of  them 
is  the  frigid  propriety,  the  languor  and  inaction,  needed  for 
which  too  often  fill  up  the  leisure  time.  Girls  gir  ' 
need  the  free  exercise  of  their  limbs  as  much  as  their  brothers, 
but  they  are  not  nearly  so  conscious  of  this  need;  and  exercises 
must  therefore  be  devised  for  them.  Tennis,  fives,  and  even 
cricket  are  among  the  out-door  games  which  would  serve  the 
purpose  well;  something  more  is  wanted  than  mere  dawdling 
in  the  open  air  over  such  a  game  as  croquet;  and  as  to  the  prim 
and  solemn  promenade  two  and  two,  under  the  severe  scrutiny 


106  Discipline. 

of  an  assistant  mistress,  it  is  hardly  to  be  called  relaxation  in 
any  sense. 

One  of  the  hardest  of  the  disciplinal  problems  of  a  boarding- 
Sunday  in  a  ^h0^  is  tne  regulation  of  the  employments  for 
boarding-  Sunday.  You  want  that  the  day  shall  have  a  special 
character,  that  its  religious  associations  shall  be  re- 
spected, and  above  all  that  it  shall  be  felt  by  all  the  scholars  to 
be  a  day  of  rest,  refreshment  and  enjoyment.  It  must  not  be 
passed  in  mere  idleness,  so  one  or  two  lessons  of  an  appropriate 
kind  must  be  devised;  but  with  these  there  should  be  required 
as  little  as  may  be  of  irksome  effort.  The  religious  services 
should  be  short,  varied,  and  interesting,  and  if  possible  such  as 
to  enlist  the  aid  of  the  scholars  in  the  choir.  And  for  the  rest, 
leave  as  much  liberty  as  you  can,  both  as  to  the  reading  and 
the  occupations  of  the  day.  Let  the  claims  of  the  higher  life 
be  recognized,  and  do  what  you  can,  rather  by  opportunity  and 
by  the  general  calm  and  order  of  the  day's  arrangements,  to 
show  that  you  regard  those  claims  as  paramount.  But  do  not 
map  out  your  Sunday  scheme  on  the  assumption  that  a  day  full 
of  devotion  or  of  religious  reading  or  exercises  can  be  delightful 
to  a  boy,  or  is  appropriate  to  so  early  a  stage  in  his  moral  and 
spiritual  progress.  Any  attempts  to  enforce  upon  him  the  be- 
havior and  the  tastes  of  older  and  serious  people  are  apt  to  de- 
feat their  own  purpose.  They  produce  a  sense  not  only  of 
unreality  but  of  weariness  and  disgust  in  those  who  rebel;  or 
worse  still,  they  sometimes  generate  insincerity  and  religious 
conceit  in  those  who  submit.  Whatever  else  is  done,  let  Sun- 
day exercises  be  such  as  can  be  reasonably  enforced  and  hon- 
estly enjoyed. 

We  have  to  consider  now  the  influence  of  rewards  and 
punishments  on  the  discipline  of  a  school,  and 
on  the  formation  of  individual  character.  Now 
a  child  may  be  stimulated  to  exertion  by  very  different  mo- 
tives: 

(1)  By  the  desire  to  get  something:  or  by  the  hope  of  some 
tangible  reward. 


Prizes.  107 

(2)  By  the  desire  of  distinction  and  the  wish  to  excel  his  fel- 
lows. 

(3)  By  the  desire  to  win  approbation  from  parents  or  teachers. 

(4)  By  the  simple  wish  to  improve,  and  to  do  the  right  thing 
because  it  is  right. 

Now  here  is  a  whole  gamut  of  motive,  and  I  have  put  first 
that  which  is  clearly  the  lowest,  and  have  arranged  them  ac- 
cording to  their  degrees  of  worthiness.  You  may  feel  that  so 
long  as  you  can  get  right  conduct  and  intellectual  exertion  you 
will  be  well  content,  whichever  of  these  motives  prevails.  But 
at  the  same  time  you  are  conscious  that  it  is  a  much  nobler 
result  of  your  discipline  to  get  them  from  the  last  motive  than 
from  any  one  of  the  others.  For  the  first  has  an  element  in  it 
of  selfishness  and  covetousness,  the  second  is  nearly  akin  to 
vanity,  and  even  the  third  is  not  perfectly  pure.  And  one  rule 
of  action  will  be  anticipated  at  once  by  all  who  follow  me  in 
this  classification  of  motive  forces.  Never  appeal  to  the  lower 
form  of  inducement  if  you  can  make  the  higher  suffice.  But 
it  is  notorious  that  we  do  appeal  very  much  in  England  to  the 
hope  of  reward.  Our  whole  educational  plans  both  for  boys 
and  for  men  are  pervaded  through  and  through  with  the  prize 
system.  We  have  rewards,  exhibitions,  money  prizes,  scholar- 
ships, fellowships — an  elaborate  system  of  bribery,  by  which 
we  try  to  stimulate  ambition  and  to  foster  excellence.  A  recent 
traveller  in  England,  Dr.  Wiese,  the  late  director  of  pxiblic  in- 
struction in  Prussia,  a  man  of  keen  insight,  and  strongly  pre- 
disposed to  admire  British  institutions,  expresses  great  surprise 
at  this.  "  Of  all  the  contrasts  which  the  English  mode  of 
thinking  and  acting  shows,  none  has  appeared  to  me  so  strik- 
ing and  contradictory  as  the  fact  that  a  nation  which  has  so 
great  and  sacred  a  sense  of  duty  makes  no  use  of  that  idea  in 
the  school  education  of  the  young.  It  has  rather  allowed  it  to 
become  the  custom,  and  it  is  an  evil  custom,  to  regard  the  pros- 
pect of  reward  and  honor  as  the  chief  impulse  to  industry  and 
exertion."  This  is  to  be  found,  he  goes  on  to  say,  at  all  stages 
of  instruction  from  the  University  to  the  Elementary  School. 


108  Discipline. 

Prizes  and  medals  are  given  not  only  for  progress  in  learning 
but  also  for  good  conduct.  "  If  any  one  in  England  wishes  to 
benefit  an  institution,  the  first  thing  always  is  to  found  prizes 
and  scholarships,  which  in  this  way  have  enormously  increased 
in  some  schools."  And  he  then  expresses  his  amazement  not 
only  at  the  large  proportion  of  scholars  who  at  a  breaking-up 
day  are  found  to  have  been  couronnes  or  rewarded  in  some  way, 
but  at  the  heap  of  gift-books  which  often  falls  to  the  lot  of  a 
single  scholar.  Now  Dr.  Wiese  has  here  hit  an  undoubtedly 
weak  point  in  our  English  education.  We  use  rewards  some- 
what lavishly.  "We  rely  on  them  too  much,  as  furnishing  the 
motive  to  excellence,  and  we  thus  do  not  give  a  fair  chance  to 
the  development  of  purer  and  nobler  motives.  There  are 
many  reasons  for  this.  I  have  seen  schools  in  which  prizes 
were  numerous  and  costly,  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  merits 
of  the  scholars,  and  have  been  told  that  the  parents  expected 
it,  that  they  would  be  offended  if  the  children  brought  nothing 
home  at  Christmas,  and  that  therefore  it  was  necessary  under 
some  pretext  or  other  that  nearly  every  child  should  have  a 
prize.  Then  rich  people  of  kindly  instincts  who  take  an  in- 
terest in  a  school  often  know  no  other  way  of  gratifying  those 
instincts  than  by  establishing  a  prize.  The  immediate  result  is 
so  pleasant,  the  gratification  of  the  receiver  of  the  prize  is  so 
evident,  that  it  is  very  hard  for  the  generous  giver  to  believe  that 
he  has  done  any  harm.  But  harm  is  done  nevertheless.  It  is 
Prizes  should  ^ere  as  ^^  c^ar*ty  to  the  poor,  about  which  so 
be  carefully  much  has  been  said  of  late.  We  have  no  right  to 
x  '  gratify  our  kindly  sensibilities  at  the  expense  of 
the  manliness  and  strength  of  those  whom  we  wish  to  benefit. 
What  we  see  in  both  cases  is  pleasure,  gratitude,  very  agreeable 
things  to  recognize;  but  what  we  do  not  see  is  some  enervation 
of  the  character,  the  silent  encouragement  of  a  false  and  lowered 
estimate  of  duty.  Hence  I  venture  to  offer  this  general  coun- 
sel. Use  rewards  sparingly.  Do  not  rely  on  their  influence 
too  much.  Do  not  give  them  for  ordinary  obedience,  or  fair 
average  application;  but  let  them  be  felt  as  real  distinctions; 


Happiness  of  Children.  109 

reserve  them  for  cases  of  special  effort  or  excellence ;  and  do  not 
feel  bound  to  accept  every  gift  or  endowment  by  which  an  amia- 
ble friend  of  the  school  may  propose  to  enrich  it,  unless  you  see 
that  there  is  likely  to  be  genuine  merit  to  correspond  to  the  gift. 
And  in  like  manner  I  would  urge  upon  you  to  economize 
your  praise.  People  of  kindly  natures  who  are  Andcommen- 
much  in  contact  with  children  are  apt  to  be  pro-  d3*1011  also- 
fuse  in  little  expressions  of  satisfaction,  "Very  well  done,"  and 
the  like.  And  if  such  phrases  are  habitually  used,  one  of  two 
things  will  happen:  either  they  will  be  taken  at  their  real 
worth — as  amiable  but  rather  feeble  utterances,  and  not  true 
criticisms — in  which  case  the  teacher's  influence  will  be  dimin- 
ished, and  he  will  have  no  means  left  for  giving  praise  when 
the  special  occasion  for  it  arises;  or  they  will  be  really  valued 
by  the  scholars  who  will  learn  to  expect  it  and  to  rely  on  it, 
and  so  will  lose  something  of  their  moral  strength.  It  is  not 
good  to  get  a  habit  of  relying  on  constant  encouragement.  It 
is  a  great  part  of  the  discipline  of  a  school  to  train  a  child  into 
doing  what  is  right  without  commendation.  Do  not  therefore 
let  a  false  amiability  cause  you  to  waste  your  praise.  "  Even 
distinguished  merit,"  says  Mr.  Bain,  "should  not  always  be 
attended  with  pagans. "  And  the  merit  you  are  most  concerned 
to  encourage  is  not  cleverness,  nor  that  which  comes  of  special 
natural  gifts,  but  rather  the  merit  of  conscientious  industry  and 
effort. 

.  By  all  means  let  us  respect  the  happiness  of  children.  Cheer- 
fulness— joyousness — the  atmosphere  of  love  and  Happiness  of 
of  well-ordered  liberty— these  things  make  the  chiflren. 
heaven  in  which  a  little  child  lives,  and  in  which  all  that  is 
gracious  and  beautiful  in  his  character  thrives  the  best.  Let 
him  have  as  much  of  this  as  you  can.  But  do  not  confound  it 
with  enjoyments,  with  what  are  called  pleasures,  with  enter- 
tainments, with  spectacles,  with  prizes,  with  things  that  cost 
money.1  These  are  not  what  a  child  wants.  Let  us  keep  them 

1  See  Jean  Paul's  Levana  oder  Erzieli-lehre,  44. 


110  Discipline. 

in  reserve  till  the  evil  days  come  when  the  zest  of  life  needs  to 
be  sustained  by  these  poor  devices.  "  Life  would  be  very  tol- 
erable," said  Sir  George  Lewis,  "  were  it  not  for  its  pleasures." 
A  schoolmaster  cannot  accept  for  himself  or  his  scholars  quite 
so  cynical  a  theory  as  this,  but  he  will  none  the  less  admit  that 
it  is  a  poor  thing  even  in  childhood  to  be  dependent  for  a  sub- 
stantial part  of  our  happiness  on  treats,  on  menus  plamrs  and 
exceptional  gratifications.  In  the  long  run  we  should  find  our 
chief  delight  in  the  ordinary  pursuits  and  duties  of  life  rather 
ihan  in  occasional  release  from  them.  And  if  school  is  to  pro- 
vide in  this  respect  a  training  for  after-life,  it  should  establish 
in  the  young  scholar's  mind  happy  associations  with  the  duties 
and  employments  of  every  day,  and  not  exclusively  or  even 
mainly  with  fgtes  and  holidays. 
The  saddest  part  of  a  schoolmaster's  experience  lies  in  the 

necessity  for  punishments.     It  is  impossible  but 

Punishments.    ^    J      _  .„  T,    .    .  -  ,     , 

that  offences  will  come.     But  if  we  are  to  deal 

rightly  with  them  when  they  come,  we  must  first  understand 
in  what  light  we  ought  to  look  on  all  sin  and  wrong-doing, 
especially  that  of  a  child.  And  it  is  surely  essential  to  learn  to 
treat  it  without  harshness,  yet  without  levity  or  indifference; 
with  full  recognition  of  the  sanctity  of  the  law  which  has  been 
broken,  and  yet  with  sympathy  for  the  weakness  which  led  to 
the  breach  of  it.  If  we  begin  by  viewing  faults  in  this  light, 
we  shall  be  better  prepared  to  look  this  difficult  question  in  the 
face. 

Now  I  can  conceive  three  possible  purposes  which  punish- 
D.ff  ,  ment  may  serve.  It  may  (1}  be  purely  retributive 
purposes  of  or  vindictive,  and  intended  to  show  the  necessary 
en '  and  righteous  connection  between  wrong-doing 
and  suffering;  or  (2)  be  purely  exemplary,  designed  to  warn 
others  and  to  prevent  the  repetition  of  the  fault;  or  (3)  be  de- 
signed for  the  reformation  of  the  offender.  If  you  consider  the 
punishments  inflicted  by  the  State  for  the  violation  of  its  laws, 
you  will  see  that  they  are  to  be  defended  mainly,  almost  exclu- 
sively, on  the  second  of  these  grounds.  It  is  not  simply  for  the 


Purpose  of  Punishment,  111 

vindication  of  the  eternal  principles  of  right  and  wrong,  or  for 
avenging  evil  deeds  as  such,  that  the  State  punishes.  Else  it 
would  deal  with  the  vices  which  degrade  men  and  dishonor 
their  nature  as  well  as  with  the  crimes  which  injure  society. 
Still  less  is  it  purely  with  a  view  to  the  reformation  of  the 
wrong-doer  that  the  community  punishes  its  members.  Of 
course  when  the  miscreant  is  once  in  our  hands,  and  the  State 
assumes  the  responsibility  of  regulating  his  life,  it  is  right  to 
make  the  discipline  as  useful  and  reformatory  as  is  consistent 
with  due  severity  in  the  punishment.  But  this  is  not  the  first 
object.  "We  do  not  keep  up  our  costly  and  elaborate  system  of 
police  and  prisons  mainly  as  an  educational  institution  on  be- 
half of  that  class  of  persons  which  least  deserves  the  nation's 
solicitude.  The  object  of  the  whole  system  of  punishment  is 
the  protection  of  society  by  the  prevention  of  crime.  "You 
are  not  sent  to  prison,"  said  a  magistrate  to  a  thief,  "for  pick- 
ing a  pocket,  but  in  order  that  pockets  may  not  be  picked." 
Now  it  is  evident  that  in  this  respect  the  School  and  the  State 
are  essentially  different.  The  one  concerns  itself  with  the  act 
done  and  its  effect  on  the  rights  and  welfare  of  the  community; 
but  the  other  concerns  itself  chiefly  with  the  doer  of  the  act. 
That  which  is  to  the  lawgiver  only  a  secondary  and  subordi- 
nate object,  is  to  the  ruler  of  the  school  the  first  object,  the  dis- 
cipline or  improvement  of  the  offenders.  If  he  punishes,  he 
cannot  of  course  keep  out  of  view  the  moral  effect  of  the  pun- 
ishment on  those  who  might  otherwise  be  tempted  to  do  wrong; 
but  his  main  object  is  to  bring  the  pupil  who  has  strayed, 
back  again  into  the  right  path — the  path  of  obedience  and  of 
duty. 

There  are  two  principal  forms  of  punishment — those  which 
consist  in  the  actual  infliction  of  pain,  or  the  depri-   Kinds  of 
vation  of  some  enjoyment;  and  those  which  de-   punishment, 
rive  their  force  from  the  fact  that  they  are  meant  to  be  pun- 
ishments, and  are  known  to  be  so.     A  glance  of  rebuke,  a  word 
or  tone  of  anger,  disgrace  or  degradation  in  the  eye  of  others, 
loss  of  office  or  of  confidence,  a  low  place  in  a  list  of  marks  for 


112  Discipline. 

merit;  all  these  are  forms  of  punishment  belonging  to  the  sec- 
ond class;  while  detention  from  play,  the  loss  of  holidays  or  of 
entertainments,  the  withholding  of  some  pleasant  ingredient 
from  a  meal,  confinement,  the  imposition  of  unpleasant  tasks, 
and  actual  castigation  belong  to  the  first  class.  And  as  we 
enumerate  these,  and  perhaps  think  of  others  which  our  own 
ingenuity  has  devised,  the  first  thought  which  occurs  to  us  all, 
is  how  happy  we  should  be  if  we  could  rid  ourselves  altogether 
of  this  kind  of  duty;  and  how  great  an  object  it  is  in  all  good 
discipline  to  reduce  the  necessity  for  punishment  to  a  minimum. 
All  these  instruments  of  torture  are  in  our  hands.  But  it  is  ob- 
vious that  we  should  never  use  the  more  formidable  instrument 
if  the  less  formidable  can  be  made  to  serve  the  purpose.  While 
the  eye  commands  respect,  the  voice  is  unnecessary;  while  a 
gentle  rebuke  will  suffice,  the  harder  tones  of  indignation  and 
remonstrance  should  not  be  used.  And  it  is  not  till  the  voice 
ceases  to  be  obeyed  at  all,  that  we  should  resort  to  severer 
measures.  It  is  one  of  the  first  objects  of  a  wise  ruler  to  dis- 
pense with  the  necessity  of  inflicting  punishment  altogether. 
But  as  this  cannot  always  be  accomplished,  one  or  two  princi- 
ples about  its  infliction  may  be  usefully  kept  in  view. 

Remember  that  secondary  punishments  intended  to  work  upon 
The  sense  the  sense  of  shame  seldom  succeed.  One  reason 
of  shame.  ig  that  they  are  so  unequal.  They  fall  so  differ- 
ently on  different  natures.  The  kind  of  disgrace  which  wounds 
a  sensitive  child  to  the  quick  and  weakens  his  self-respect  for 
years,  falls  harmless  on  a  bolder,  harder  nature,  and  gives  no 
pain  at  all.  Many  very  good  teachers,  though,  I  am  glad  to 
say,  a  decreasing  number,  think  it  possible  to  produce  a  salu- 
tary effect  on  children  by  humiliating  them  in  the  eyes  of  others. 
Joseph  Lancaster,  who  showed  a  shrewd  insight  into  many 
matters  of  education,  was  curiously  unwise  in  this  respect.  He 
invented  a  number  of  penalties  designed  expressly  to  make 
wrong-doing  ridiculous.  He  would  tie  a  boy  who  had  broken 
a  rule  to  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  school.  He  had  a  pulley 
fixed  in  the  roof,  and  a  rope  and  a  basket,  and  would  put  an 


Tasks  as  Punishments.  113 

offender  into  the  basket,  and  let  him  be  drawn  up  in  the  sight 
of  the  whole  school,  and  remain  there  suspended  for  its  amuse- 
ment. All  such  devices  are  happily  extinct.  Fools'  caps  and 
stools  of  repentance  in  schools  have  gone  the  way  of  the  stocks, 
of  the  pillory,  and  of  public  floggings  in  the  criminal  code  of 
the  nation;  because  they  were  all  founded  on  the  same  vicious 
principle,  of  trying  to  prevent  wrong-doing  by  making  fun  of 
it,  and  by  exposing  the  offender  to  scorn  and  ridicule.  You 
degrade  an  entire  community  when  you  enable  its  members  to 
get  any  amusement  out  of  the  procedure  of  justice,  or  out  of 
the  sufferings  of  a  criminal. 

And  I  think  the  use  of  sarcasm  and  of  ridicule  in  the  treat- 
ment of  children,  even  when  we  do  not  punish   _ 

c  i.  -^          i          j    Ridicule, 

them,  is  equally  out  of  harmony  with  a  wise  and 

high-minded  moral  discipline.  Some  of  us  have  a  natural  gift 
for  satire  and  for  wit;  and  it  is  very  hard  to  abstain  from  the 
exercise  of  this  weapon,  whenever  there  is  anything  in  a  child's 
conduct  to  excite  our  scorn  or  sense  of  the  ridiculous.  But  it  is 
a  dangerous  weapon  nevertheless,  and  we  should  put  a  severe 
restraint  upon  ourselves  in  the  use  of  it.  We  must  not  so  treat 
wrong-doing  as  to  weaken  the  self-respect  of  the  scholar,  and  to 
make  the  way  to  reformation  steeper  or  more  thorny  than  it  is. 
Is  it  needful  that  I  should  warn  any  one  here  against  setting 
tasks  for  punishments  ?  I  believe,  however,  that  Tasks  as  pun- 
they  are  still  sometimes  used  for  this  purpose,  and  ishments. 
I  am  astonished  to  find  in  a  modern  book  containing  so  much 
that  is  wise  and  philosophical  as  Mr.  Bain's  Education  as  a 
Science,  a  recognition  of  tasks  and  impositions  as  legitimate 
punishments,  because  "  the  pain  of  intellectual  ennui  is  severe 
to  those  that  have  no  liking  for  books  in  any  shape."  One 
might  have  hoped  that  this  doctrine  at  least  would  ere  this  have 
been  swept  away  "into  the  limbo  large  and  broad "  of  obsolete 
heresies.  For  what  possible  effect  can  be  produced  by  all  our 
homilies  as  to  the  profit  and  pleasantness  of  learning  if  by  our' 
own  act  we  admit  that  a  lesson  may  serve  as  a  punishment  ? 
"  Because  you  have  disobeyed  me  you  shall  have  a  harder  or  a 
8 


114  Discipline. 

longer  lesson  to-night."  What  is  this  but  to  reveal  that  you 
think  learning  a  lesson  is  a  kind  of  penal  servitude  ?  And  this 
is  a  thing  we  should  never  even  tacitly  admit.  First  because  it 
ought  not  to  be  true,  and  secondly  because  it  will  soon  become 
true  if  you  show  that  you  believe  it  to  be  so.  Of  course  this 
remark  does  not  apply  to  the  making  up  for  some  neglect  by 
finishing  a  lesson  in  play-hours.  It  is  a  legitimate  thing,  if  a 
duty  of  any  kind  is  not  performed  at  the  proper  time,  to  insist 
on  its  finished  performance  before  the  scholar  begins  to  enjoy 
his  leisure.  And  in  this  sense,  detention  in-doors  to  go  over 
again  some  neglected  lesson,  though  it  looks  like  a  punishment, 
is  right  and  lawful.  For  it  is  not  the  lesson  in  this  case  which 
constitutes  the  punishment,  but  the  expenditure  of  time  needed 
to  make  up  for  former  waste.  And  this,  as  you  will  see,  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  setting  the  lesson  itself  as  a  penalty 
for  wrong-doing  of  some  other  kind. 

And  in  punishing  never  let  your  indignation  betray  you  into 
Blame  should  makinS  vour  blame  too  comprehensive,  or  out  of 
be  specific,  proportion  to  the  particular  act  which  called  it 
forth.  Treat  every  separate  case  of  negligence  by 
itself,  but  do  not  call  a  boy  a  dunce.  Censure,  and  if  needful 
punish,  a  deliberate  untruth,  but  do  not  say  to  a  child,  "  You 
are  a  liar."  Regard  each  separate  wrong  act,  as  far  as  you  can 
honestly  do  so,  as  exceptional,  not  typical,  as  one  which  may 
be  atoned  for,  and  the  memory  of  which  may  be  obliterated  by 
a  right  act.  To  call  a  child  by  an  evil  name  is  to  assume  that 
his  character  is  formed,  and  this  happily  is  not  true  even  of 
your  worst  scholars.  If  it  were  true,  what  could  be  more  dis- 
couraging, more  fatal  to  the  success  of  any  poor  struggles  he 
may  make  to  set  himself  right,  and  to  regain  your  approbation? 

May  I  add  also  that  punishments  should  never  be  inflicted 
on  too  many  at  a  time,  on  a  whole  class  for  instance?  They 
lose  all  their  force  if  they  are  thus  indiscriminate;  it  is  very  im- 
probable that  all  the  children  in  a  group  should  be  equally 
guility;  and  unless  each  one  feels  that  the  loss  or  disgrace  in- 
flicted on  him  is  duly  and  properly  proportioned  to  his  own 


Indiscriminate  J2lame.  115 

personal  fault,  he  is  conscious  of  injustice,  and  your  punish- 
ment fails  to  produce  any  moral  effect. 

Rousseau  and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  have  said  much,  and 
have  said  it  well,  about  the  evil  of  arbitrary  pun-  Th  ^  •  ,- 
ishments,  which  have  no  intelligible  fitness  or  of  conse- 
relation  to  the  nature  of  the  fault  committed.  And  q 
I  strongly  recommend  every  teacher  to  read  what  is  said  in 
Emile,  and  in  the  chapter  on  Moral  Education  in  Mr.  Spencer's 
well-known  book.  Those  authors  point  out  that  nature  pun- 
ishes faults  in  a  very  effective  way.  If  one  goes  too  near  a  fire 
he  is  burnt;  if  he  plays  with  a  knife  he  hurts  himself;  and  in 
like  manner,  if  a  child  carelessly  loses  something  belonging  to 
him,  he  should  feel  the  inconvenience  of  going  without  it,  and 
not  have  it  at  once  replaced  by  a  kind  but  injudicious  parent. 
If  he  is  unpunctual  he  should  not  be  waited  for  when  any  walk 
or  pleasure  is  to  be  had,  but  should  be  left  behind;  if  he  is  un- 
tidy and  makes  a  litter  he  should  be  made  to  gather  it  up. 
When  in  this  way  the  inconvenience  suffered  is  seen  to  be  the 
direct  consequence  of  the  fault,  a  child  cannot  rebel  as  he  could, 
for  example,  if  for  doing  any  one  of  these  things  he  was  sent 
to  bed.  You  eliminate  altogether  the  feeling  of  personal  resent- 
ment and  the  sense  of  injustice  if  you  make  the  punishment 
thus,  whenever  possible,  obviously  appropriate  to  the  fault  and 
logically  its  sequel.  The  principle,  once  seen,  covers  a  good 
many  school  offences.  The  obvious  punishment  for  late  com- 
ing is  late  going;  for  doing  an  exercise  ill  is  to  do  it  again  well; 
for  wasting  the  time  in  school  is  to  forfeit  some  of  the  hours  of 
leisure;  for  all  invasion  of  the  rights  and  comforts  of  others  is 
to  find  one's  own  privileges  or  comforts  restricted ;  for  injury 
to  the  property  of  others,  restitution  at  one's  own  cost.  And 
from  this  point  of  view  it  will  be  seen  how  unsatisfactory  is  the 
discipline  when  for  telling  a  lie  one  has  to  learn  a  hundred  lines 
of  Virgil;  or  for  confounding  the  perfect  with  the  pluperfect 
tense  to  receive  a  flogging.  In  the  former  cases  the  discipline 
commends  itself  to  the  conscience  of  the  child.  In  tne  latter  his 
moral  sense  rebels,  and  rightly  rebels,  against  it. 


116  Discipline. 

But  unfortunately  for  the  theory  of  Rousseau  and  Mr.  Spen- 
Whyin-  cer,  nature  does  not  provide  a  sure  and  visible 

adequate.  penalty  for  every  offence.  Truly  I  know  no  more 
impressive  lesson  for  a  child  than  to  show  him  how  wrong-do- 
ing produces  evil  consequences;  how  pitiless  and  inexorable 
are  the  laws  in  virtue  of  which  all  sin  brings  harm  and  misery 
with  it  in  the  long-run;  how  intemperance  enfeebles  the  body; 
how  idleness  begets  poverty;  how  the  liar  is  not  trusted;  how 
ignorance  brings  dishonor;  how  improvidence  breeds  crime, 
and  leads  to  loss  of  character  and  loss  of  happiness.  And  I 
think  that  the  utilitarian  philosophers  are  right  in  urging  us  to 
teach  in  our  schools  some  of  the  simpler  truths  of  economic 
science,  the  laws  of  industrial  and  social  life,  which  will  en- 
able the  scholars  thus  to  trace  out  the  connection  between  con- 
duct and  well-being,  between  all  faults  and  their  natural 
penalties.  But  valuable  as  such  teaching  is,  experience  proves 
to  us  that  it  is  wholly  inadequate  as  a  theory  of  moral  govern- 
ment either  for  a  school  or  for  a  State. 

The  reasons  why  it  is  inadequate  are  not  the  same  in  the  two 
Because  not  cases.  A  civil  ruler  cannot  rely  on  the  discipline  of 

severe  natural  consequences,  because  they  are  too  remote 

enough  for  u  J 

the  purpose  and  too  dimly  seen  to  serve  as  effective  deterrents, 
of  a  state.  jj.  nee(jg  ^  egort  of  imagination,  of  which  a  crimi- 
nal is  generally  incapable,  to  realize  such  consequences  at  all. 
And  in  fact,  you  cannot  demonstrate  to  his  satisfaction  that  any 
consequences  which  he  dreads  will  certainly  occur.  You  take  a 
thief  and  explain  to  him  that  honesty  is  conducive  to  the  public 
welfare.  But  in  most  cases  he  knows  that  as  well  as  you.  You 
prove  to  him  that  nine  thieves  out  of  ten  are  detected  and  come 
to  ultimate  ruin.  Your  demonstration  fails  to  affect  him.  Why  ? 
Because  he  means  to  be  the  tenth.  He  knows  that  consequences 
are  sometimes  avoided,  and  he  thinks  he  will  be  skilful  enough 
to  avoid  them.  And  as  to  your  proof  that  dishonest  acts  will 
bring  about  slow  deterioration  of  character  and  certain  loss  of 
friends,  of  position,  and  of  general  esteem,  the  man  with  crimi- 
nal tendencies  who  is  subject  to  strong  temptation  is  generally 


The  Discipline  of  Consequences.  117 

inaccessible  to  such  considerations;  and  society  for  its  own  pro- 
tection is  justified  in  interposing  with  its  artificial  penalties, 
which  are  sharper  and  more  effective. 

And  while  the  State  cannot  rely  wholly  on  natural  punish- 
ments, because  for  her  purpose  they  are  too  light,  Because  too 
the  parent  or  the  teacher  has  exactly  the  opposite 
reason  for  not  depending  upon  them.  They  are  school, 
for  his  purpose  far  too  severe.  You  want  by  timely  interpo- 
sition with  a  small  arbitrary  punishment  to  save  him  from  the 
more  cruel  Nemesis  which  nature  has  provided  for  wrong-doing. 
He  is,  it  may  be,  inclined  to  gluttony,  and  you  know  that  if 
you  leave  him  alone  Nature  will  avenge  the  violation  of  her 
laws  by  enfeebling  his  constitution  and  depriving  him  prema- 
turely of  health  and  vigor.  But  because  you  are  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  the  formation  of  his  character,  this  is  precisely  the 
penalty  you  wish  to  avoid;  and  you  subject  him  to  some  pain- 
ful restraint,  because  you  wish  to  substitute  a  light  penalty  for 
a  heavy  one.  You  see  a  man  rushing  towards  a  precipice,  and 
you  knock  him  down.  What  justifies  this  act  of  violence? 
Nothing,  except  that  by  the  infliction  of  a  small  and  wholly 
arbitrary  injury,  you  have  helped  him  to  escape  from  the  greater 
injury  which  would  have  been  the  natural  penalty  of  his  own 
imprudence. 

It  is  a  familiar  conclusion  from  experience  that  in  a  school, 
as  in  a  State,  it  is  the  certainty  rather  than  the  The  certainty 

severity  of  a  punishment  which  has  a  deterring   not  the  se- 

verity  of  a 
effect.     If  an  offender  could  feel  that  detection   punishment 

was  absolutely  certain,  the  dread  of  consequences,  "eters- 
whether  natural  or  arbitrary,  would  be  much  more  potent. 
"Because,"  said  Solomon,  "sentence  against  an  evil  work  is 
not  executed  speedily,  therefore  the  hearts  of  the  sons  of  men 
are  fully  set  in  them  to  do  evil."  That  was  his  experience  as 
an  administrator.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  child  knows  that 
though  lying  is  wrong,  there  are  lies  which  serve  their  purpose 
and  are  never  found  out;  that  there  are  cases  in  which  dis- 
honesty seems  for  a  time  at  least  to  be  good  policy;  and  it  is 


118  Discipline. 

the  knowledge  of  these  and  the  like  facts  which  will  always 
leave  something  more  to  be  desired,  when  you  are  seeking  to 
deter  children  from  evil,  by  the  utilitarian  method  of  tracing 
out  that  evil  to  its  consequences.  And  what  is  that  something? 
I  believe  it  to  lie  in  the  constant  reference  of  moral  questions  to 
higher  considerations  than  those  of  expediency  and  of  results — 
to  the  inward  sense  of  right  and  of  moral  fitness,  to  the  senti- 
ment of  honor  "which  feels,"  as  Burke  finely  says,  "a  stain 
like  a  wound,"  to  a  perception  of  the  beauty  of  holiness,  to  the 
desire  to  do  what  our  heavenly  Father  meant  us  to  do  and  to 
be  what  he  fitted  us  to  be,  whether  happiness  and  prosperity 
come  of  it  or  not. 

And  as  you  succeed  in  cultivating  the  sentiment  of  honor  and 
__  .  the  habit  of  referring  school  merits  and  offences  to 

kinds  of  pun-  the  standard  of  what  is  in  itself  right  and  fitting, 
and  worthy  of  your  scholar's  best  self,  it  will  come 
.  to  pass  that  your  most  effective  punishments — indeed  almost 
your  only  punishments — will  consist  in  the  loss  of  honor.  Bad 
marks,  a  low  place  in  the  class,  the  withholding  of  office  and 
responsibility,  and  of  all  signs  of  esteem  and  confidence, — these 
after  all  fulfil  in  the  best  way  the  two  most  important  conditions 
of  all  right  punishment.  For  there  is  nothing  arbitrary  or  ca- 
pricious about  them,  since  they  are  the  natural  and  appropriate 
consequences  of  the  faults  to  which  they  pertain.  And  at  the 
same  time  they  are  eminently  reformatory;  for  they  indicate 
clearly  the  way  to  repentance  and  improvement.  So  my  counsel 
to  all  schoolmasters  is:  Look  in  this  direction  for  the  punish- 
ments which  you  may  lawfully  and  wisely  use:  and  be  dissatis- 
fied with  yourself  and  with  your  own  plan  of  discipline  so  long 
as  you  find  it  needful  to  employ  any  others. 

Yet  we  must  not  omit  a  brief  reference  to  corporal  punish- 
Corporal  ment,  the  ultima  ratio  of  the  puzzled  and  baffled 
punishment,  schoolmaster  when  all  other  means  fail.  Shall  we 
begin  by  denouncing  it  altogether?  I  think  not.  The  punish- 
ment of  the  body  for  certain  offences  is  nature's  way  of  disci- 
pline, and  it  is  not  necessarily  degrading  to  young  children,  nor 


Corporal  Punishment.  119 

unsuited  to  the  imperfect  state  of  their  mental  and  moral  develop- 
ment. Arnold,  though  I  suspect  that  his  views  on  this  subject 
would  have  altered  in  later  years,  was  not  wholly  wrong  when 
he  vindicated  flogging  in  certain  extreme  cases.  "  The  proud 
notion  of  independence  and  dignity  which  revolts  at  the  idea 
of  personal  chastisement  is  not  reasonable  and  is  certainly  not 
Christian,"  he  said.  After  all  it  is  sin  which  degrades  and  not 
the  punishment  of  it.  And  if  there  be  certain  forms  of  vice 
which  can  be  cured  more  readily  by  the  infliction  of  such  chas- 
tisement than  by  any  other  means,  the  chastisement  will  need 
no  other  vindication.  And  yet  while  allowing  full  weight  to 
this  view  of  the  case,  I  am  convinced  that  corporal  punishment 
is  almost  wholly  unnecessary,  that  it  does  more  harm  than  good, 
and  that  in  just  the  proportion  in  which  teachers  understand 
their  business  they  will  learn  to  dispense  with  it.  In  boarding 
schools  it  seems  to  me  wholly  indefensible;  for  there,  where 
the  whole  discipline  of  the  life  and  the  control  of  leisure  is  in 
the  teacher's  hands,  there  are  many  other  ways  open  to  him  of 
imposing  penalties.  And  there  is  scarcely  less  necessity  for  it  in 
day  schools.  The  largest  and  one  of  the  best  day  schools  I  ever 
examined,  where  the  whole  tone  of  the  discipline  is  singularly 
high,  manly,  and  cheerful,  has  never  once  during  its  whole  his- 
tory had  a  case  of  corporal  punishment.  But  the  master,  when 
I  was  reporting  on  the  school,  begged  me  not  to  mention  this 
fact.  "  I  do  not  mean  to  use  it,"  he  said,  "  but  I  do  not  want 
it  to  be  in  the  power  of  the  public  or  the  parents  to  say  I  am 
precluded  from  using  it.  Every  boy  here  knows  that  it  is  with- 
in my  discretion,  and  that  if  a  very  grave  or  exceptional  fault 
occurred  I  might  exercise  that  discretion."  I  believe  that  to  be 
the  true  attitude  for  all  teachers  to  assume.  They  should  not 
have  their  discretion  narrowed  by  any  outward  law,  but  they 
should  impose  a  severe  law  on  themselves.  And  in  carrying  it 
out  I  venture  to  make  two  or  three  suggestions  only: 

(1)  Never  inflict  corporal  chastisement  for  intellectual  faults; 
for  stupidity  or  ignorance.  Reserve  it  exclusively  for  vices, 
for  something  morally  degrading.  (2)  Never  inflict  it  while 


120  Discipline. 

under  the  influence  of  heat  or  passion.  (3)  Never  permit  an 
assistant  or  an  elder  scholar  to  inflict  it  in  any  circumstances. 
(4)  Do  not  let  any  instrument  of  punishment  be  included  as 
part  of  the  school  furniture,  and  as  an  object  of  familiar  sight, 
or  flourished  about  as  a  symbol  of  authority.  (5)  Do  not  strike 
with  the  hand. 

On  this  whole  subject  of  the  mode  and  manner  of  inflicting 
punishment  you  will  find  some  useful  hints  in  Jeremy  Ben- 
tham's  Chrestomathia,  which  I  advise  every  teacher  to  read. 

But  we  return  finally  to  this  consideration.  The  great  tri- 
How  to  dis-  UH^Pk  °f  school  discipline  is  to  do  without  punish- 
pence  with  ments  altogether.  And  to  this  end  it  is  essential 
'  that  we  should  watch  those  forms  of  offence  which 
occur  oftenest,  and  see  if  by  some  better  arrangements  of  our 
own,  temptation  to  wrong  may  be  diminished  and  offences  pre- 
vented. If  your  government  is  felt  to  be  based  on  high  princi- 
ples, to  be  vigilant  and  entirely  just,  to  be  strict  without  being 
severe,  to  have  no  element  of  caprice  or  fitfulness  in  it;  if  the 
public  opinion  of  the  school  is  so  formed  that  a  scholar  is  un- 
popular who  does  wrong,  you  will  find  not  only  that  all  the 
more  degrading  forms  of  personal  chastisement  are  unneces- 
sary, but  that  the  need  of  punishment  in  any  form  will  steadily 
disappear. 


The  Law  of  Mental  Suggestion.  121 


V.    LEARNING  AND  REMEMBERING. 

THEKE  is  no  one  department  of  educational  work  in  which 
the  difference  between  skilled  and  unskilled  teach- 


ing  is  so  manifest  as  in  the  view  which  is  taken  of  rules  must  be 
,,       -       ,..        -  ,        ,  .     .    .  ultimately  de- 

the  faculty  of  memory,  the  mode  of  training  it,    pendent  on 


and  the  uses  to  which  different  teachers  seek  to 
put  it.  We  are  here  at  the  meeting  point  of  practice  and  of 
speculative  psychology;  and  it  is  impossible  for  you  or  me  to 
arrive  at  entirely  right  rules  of  action  in  reference  to  this  sub- 
ject unless  our  attention  is  also  directed  to  the  nature  of  the  in- 
tellectual process  which  we  call  remembering,  and  to  the  laws 
which  determine  its  action.  I  shall  however  abstain  from  en- 
croaching on  the  domain  of  my  successor  here,  whose  duty  it 
will  be  to  expound  to  you  the  philosophy  of  memory.  But  it 
may  be  well  to  say  that  this  line  of  inquiry  will  prove  very 
fruitful,  and  that  some  study  of  what  Locke,  Reid,  Dr.  Thomas 
Brown,  and  Professor  Bain  have  said  on  the  laws  of  associa- 
tion; of  what  Dr.  Carpenter  and  Dr.  Maudsley  have  said 
respecting  the  physical  basis  of  memory;  and  of  the  wise  and 
practical  distinction  which  Mr.  Latham  in  his  book  on  Exami- 
nations has  drawn  between  what  he  calls  respectively  the  "por- 
tative," the  "analytical."  the  "assimilative^  and  the  "index" 
memory  would  be  of  great  value  in  forming  your  own  judg- 
ment upon  it. 

For  my  present  purpose  it  must  suffice  to  mention  one  or  two 
very  simple  truths  as  a  basis  for  the  few  practical   —    j 
rules  which  we  hope  to  arrive  at  on  this  important   of  mental 
matter.    By  a  wonderful  process,  which  is  some-  sugges 
times  called  mental  suggestion  or  association,  we  find  that  every 


122  Learning  and  Remembering. 

thought  and  action  in  our  life  links  itself  with  some  other 
thought  or  action.  No  piece  of  mental  or  spiritual  experience 
is  thoroughly  isolated.  No  act,  even  of  sensible  perception, 
takes  place  without  associating  itself  with  some  previous 
thought,  or  suggesting  a  new  one.  When  we  come  to  analyze 
these  phenomena  we  find  that  there  are,  roughly  distinguish- 
able, two  classes  of  associations.  We  may,  when  we  are  told 
of  a  fact,  think  also  of  the  reason  or  consequence  of  that  fact; 
and  two  distinct  ideas  may  come  before  our  minds  together, 
because  we  perceive  the  logical  nexus  which  unites  them. 
Thus  the  thought  of  a  good  vintage  in  France  suggests  to  me 
that  claret  may  be  cheaper;  the  history  of  Caxton  and  the  early 
printers  may  make  me  think  of  the  revival  of  learning;  heavy 
war  expenditures  suggests  national  debt;  bad  government  sug- 
gests revolution.  In  like  manner  a  particular  problem  in 
Euclid  reminds  me  of  the  axioms  and  postulates  on  which  its 
solution  depends;  and  a  solecism  in  speech  makes  me  think  of 
the  grammatical  rule  which  has  been  violated.  In  all  these 
cases  the  character  of  the  associations  which  are  formed,  and 
the  ease  with  which  they  may  hereafter  be  recalled  together, 
depend  on  the  degree  in  which  the  judgment  and  the  reflec- 
tive power  have  been  cultivated  on  the  subjects  to  which  they 
relate. 

But  besides  these  logical  and  natural  associations,  as  we  may 
call  them,  there  are  many  others  which  are  purely  arbitrary, 
in  which  there  is  no  special  appropriateness  in  the  connection 
formed.  Such  are  the  associations  between  names  and  persons, 
between  dates  and  facts,  between  words  and  ideas,  between 
weights  or  measures  and  the  figures  representing  their  ratios, 
between  contemporaneous  events  in  different  countries.  Now 
in  all  these  cases  no  judgment  or  reflection  will  help  me  to 
strengthen  the  association.  If  the  link  between  the  things  thus 
related  exists  at  all  it  must  be  forged  by  some  mechanical  pro- 
cess. I  am  told  that  Columbus  discovered  America  in  1492, 
but  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  which  my  understanding 
can  recognize  why  the  date  should  not  have  been  1452.  The 


Reminiscence.  123 


books  tell  me  that  there  are  5|  yds.  in  a  pole,  and  I  think  of 
the  word  pole  and  these  figures  together,  but  I  do  not  establish 
this  association  by  any  rational  process.  It  is  established,  if  at 
all,  by  some  other  means.  The  suggestion  is  one  of  words 
rather  than  of  thoughts. 

Now,  if  we  will  consider  it,  the  main  differences  in  the  men- 
tal calibre  and  character  of  men  depend  largely  Different 

upon  the  sort  of  ideas  which  habitually  or  most  forms  of 

.    ,        m  ,.    associations, 

readily  coalesce  in  their  minds.     To  a  man  01 

strong  or  lofty  imagination  a  very  common  incident  may  sug- 
gest some  hidden  moral  analogies,  or  far-reaching  truth: 

"  To  him  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  doth  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

And  such  a  man  we  call  a  poet.  In  the  case  of  another  man, 
every  striking  scene  in  the  phantasmagoria  of  life  sets  him  re- 
flecting on  its  antecedents  and  consequences;  and  such  a  man 
has  the  philosophic  temper,  he  is  the  reasoner,  the  moralist,  the 
sage.  To  a  third  the  sound  of  a  word  suggests  only  some  gro- 
tesque simile,  some  remote  allusion,  some  idea,  which  though 
essentially  different,  has  a  superficial  resemblance.  And  such 
a  person  is  the  man  of  fancy  or  of  wit.  But  when  on  hearing 
a  word,  or  being  reminded  of  a  scene,  the  mind  at  once  passes 
to  the  other  words  or  actions  which  were  linked  with  it  when 
we  recognized  it  at  first;  when  it  simply  recalls  a  certain  group 
of  words  or  thoughts  in  the  same  sequence  as  that  in  which  they 
were  before  presented;  then  we  say  the  man  has  a  good  memory. 
He  can  in  fact  reproduce  readily  former  associations,  whether 
logical  or  not. 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  process  which  goes  on  when  we 
try  to  remember  a  fact.    You  ask  me  the  name  of  The  process 
the  statesman  who  tried  so  hard  to  set  poor  Louis   of  remember- 
XVI. 's  finances  in  order,  and  I  cannot  remember  a>e' 
it.     Of  course,  if  I  knew  the  first  letter  of  the  name,  that  would 
give  me  a  clue,  and  I  should  wait  till  that  initial  suggested  to 
me  a  number  of  names,  should  fasten  with  special  attention  on 


124  Learning  and  Remembering. 

likely  names,  and  dismiss  as  fast  as  I  could  other  names,  which, 
though  beginning  with  the  same  letter,  were  not,  I  know,  what 
were  wanted.  But  I  do  not  remember  the  initial.  So  I  let  my 
mind  dwell  for  a  moment  on  Louis  XVI.  As  I  do  so,  the 
names  of  Calonne,  of  La  Fayette,  even  of  Burke  and  Pitt  occur 
to  me.  They  are  not  what  I  want,  and  I  refuse  to  let  my  mind 
dwell  on  them.  I  think  of  Madame  de  Stael.  Stop,  she  was 
the  daughter  of  the  statesman  whose  name  I  seek.  Of  Gibbon: 
that  reminds  me  that  he  had  sought  the  same  lady  in  marriage. 
Then  Geneva  and  Lausanne  and  Ferney  and  Voltaire,  all 
names  which  are  connected,  come  rapidly  through  my  mind, 
and  in  the  midst  of  them  Necker's  name  is  suggested,  and  I 
fasten  on  it  at  once.  It  is  what  I  wanted. 

Now  you  will  observe  here  that  it  is  not  by  any  conscious  act 
that  I  have  remembered  this  name.  I  cannot  be  said  to  have 
found  it,  or  dug  it  up  from  the  stores  of  my  memory.  These 
metaphors  are  very  misleading.  What  I  have  done  is  simply 
this:  I  have  waited  for  the  laws  of  association  to  operate,  and 
for  the  wonderful  spontaneous  power  of  mental  suggestion  to 
help  me.  An  effort  of  will  served  to  bring  my  attention  to 
bear  on  those  suggestions  which,  as  they  emerged,  seemed 
most  hopeful;  I  withdrew  my  attention  from  all  unpromising 
trains  of  association,  and  in  due  time  the  particular  name  of 
which  I  was  in  search  came  back.  If  I  had  had  a  better 
memory  it  would  have  come  back  sooner,  or  with  less  effort. 

Now  this  faculty  of  remembering  is  one  which  we  constantly 
want  to  use  in  our  teaching.  What  would  be  the  worth  of 
any  teaching  without  it?  We  desire  of  course  to  stimulate  the 
power  of  fresh  thought,  to  make  children  observers,  reasoners, 
thinkers.  But  the  first  thing  we  demand  of  them  is  that  they 
should  recollect  what  we  teach.  If  we  have  been  at  the  pains 
to  link  together  two  things,  say  a  word  and  its  meaning,  a  fact 
and  a  date,  or  two  thoughts  by  way  of  comparison  or  contrast, 
we  want  the  process  of  linking  them  to  be  so  effective,  that  when- 
ever afterwards  the  one  is  presented  to  the  mind,  the  other  shall 
come  with  it.  Unless  the  associations  of  thought  and  words 


How  Associations  are  Fixed.  125 

which  we  seek  lo  establish  are  permanent,  there  is  imper- 
fect memory;  and  if  the  memory  is  imperfect,  our  labor  is 
lost. 

So  it  is  obvious  that  we  ought  to  inquire  into  the  conditions 
which    give    permanence    to    associations    once    Modes  of  es- 
brought  before  the  mind.      How  are  we  to  fix   ^ma^It 
them?    There  are  two  obvious  ways:  associations. 

The  first  of  them  is  that  of  frequent  repetition.  We  learn 
to  fix  many  pairs  of  associated  words  or  ideas  to-  (i)  Frequent 
gether,  not  because  we  try  to  do  so,  but  simply  repetition, 
because  circumstances  bring  them  constantly  before  us  in  jux- 
taposition.1 Thus  we  learn  the  names  of  the  people  about  us, 
the  sequence  of  words  in  familiar  texts  and  verses,  the  colloca- 
tion of  objects  in  the  houses  and  streets  we  see  every  day. 
Suggest  any  one  of  these  to  the  mind,  and  instantly  those 
which  are  related  to  it  by  mere  contiguity  come  up  before 
us  in  connection  whether  we  care  to  recall  them  or  not.  I 
might  to-day  by  simply  reiterating  the  same  sentence  fifty  times 
make  such  an  impression  on  your  mind  that  you  would  never 
forget  it.  The  effect  of  mere  frequency  of  repetition,  in  fasten- 


1  "That  which  has  existed  with  any  completeness  in  consciousness 
leaves  behind  it,  after  its  disappearance  therefrom,  in  the  mind  or  brain, 
a  functional  disposition  to  its  reproduction  or  reappearance  in  con- 
sciousness at  some  future  time.  Of  no  mental  act  can  we  say  that  it  is 
'writ  in  water.'  Something  remains  from  it  whereby  its  recurrence  is 
facilitated.  Every  impression  of  sense  upon  the  brain,  every  current  of 
molecular  activity  from  one  to  another  part  of  the  brain,  every  cerebral 
reaction  which  passes  into  movement,  leaves  behind  it  some  modifica- 
tion of  the  nerve-elements  concerned  in  its  function,  some  after-effect, 
or,  so  to  speak,  memory  of  itself  in  them,  which  renders  its  reproduc- 
tion an  easier  matter,  the  more  easy  the  more  often  it  has  been  repeat- 
ed, and  makes  it  impossible  to  say  that,  however  trivial,  it  shall  not  in 
some  circumstances  recur.  Let  the  excitation  take  place  in  one  of  two 
nerve-cells  lying  side  by  side,  and  between  which  there  was  not  origi- 
nally any  specific  difference,  there  will  be  ever  afterwards  a  difference 
between  them.  This  physiological  process,  whatever  be  its  nature,  is 
the  physical  basis  of  memory,  and  it  is  the  foundation  of  our  mental 
functions." — DR.  MAUDSLEY. 


126  Learning  and  Remembering. 

ing  together  even  the  most  incongruous  associations,  is  so 
familiar  to  you  that  it  needs  no  further  illustration. 

The  second  condition  of  remembering  is  the  interest  or  sym- 
(2)  Interest  in  Patnv  ^^  which  we  regard  the  things  associated, 
the  thing  I  go  to  hear  a  lecture  on  English  Literature,  and 
incidentally  there  are  mentioned  in  the  course  of 
it  two  facts,  the  one  that  Phineas  Fletcher  wrote  the  Purple 
Island,  the  other  that  James  Thomson  wrote  Rule  Britannia  in 
a  mask  of  his  called  Alfred.  Well,  it  probably  happens  that  the 
one  fact  interests  me  and  the  other  does  not.  I  never  heard  of 
Fletcher  before,  and  have  not  cared  to  inquire  what  the  Purple 
Island  meant.  But  I  have  often  heard  Rule  Britannia  sung, 
and  perhaps  it  never  occurred  to  me  to  inquire  who  wrote  it. 
That  a  rather  vain-glorious,  noisy,  patriotic  song  should  have 
been  written  by  James  Thomson,  whose  name  I  have  been 
accustomed  to  associate  with  pastoral  musings,  and  sweet  luxu- 
rious fancies  about  the  Castle  of  Indolence,  comes  to  me  as  a 
surprise.  A  month  later,  it  is  found  that  I  have  forgotten  all 
about  the  Purple  Island,  but  I  remember  vividly  the  origin  of 
Rule  Britannia.  And  the  reason  is  plain.  It  is  true,  I  heard 
both  facts  once  only.  But  then  the  one  fact  excited  my  atten- 
tion and  interest,  and  the  other  did  not;  and  this  accounts  for 
the  difference. 

Now  the  obvious  conclusion  from  this  is,  that  if  you  want  to 
have  a  thing  remembered  you  may  do  it  in  either  of  two  ways. 
You  may  fasten  it  by  dint  of  frequent  repetition  into  the 
memory  of  one  who  does  not  care  to  retain  it;  or  you  may  get 
the  thing  remembered  simply  by  exciting  in  your  pupil  a  strong 
wish  to  remember  it.  And  the  labor  involved  in  the  two  pro- 
cesses may  be  stated  in  inverse  proportion:  the  more  you  use  the 
one  expedient  the  less  you  want  of  the  other.  The  act  of  re- 
membering may  be  a  mechanical,  almost  an  automatic,  process, 
or  it  may  be  an  intelligent  process.  But  in  just  the  proportion 
in  which  you  make  it  intelligent  it  ceases  to  be  mechanical, 
and  conversely.  Every  emotion  of  sympathy  and  interest  you 
can  awaken  will  render  less  necessary  the  wearisome  joyless  pro- 


Abstract  and  Concrete  Memory. 


cess  of  learning  a  task  by  heart.  Let  it  be  kept  in  your  own 
view,  and  in  that  of  your  pupils,  that  the  first  condition  of  easy 
remembering  is  that  we  care  to  remember,  that  if  we  have  a  bad 
memory  it  is  not  nature's  fault,  but  it  is  simply  because  we  do 
not  put  sufficient  force  of  will  into  the  act  of  tying  together  the 
ideas  which  we  propose  to  keep  associated.  Promise  children 
some  pleasure,  and  they  will  find  no  difficulty  in  remembering 
it.  To  say  that  we  do  not  recollect  a  thing  is  simply  to  say  that 
we  did  not  pay  sufficiently  close  attention  to  it  when  it  was 
first  brought  before  our  minds. 

And  what  is  the  kind  of  memory  we  want  most  to  cultivate? 
Is  it  the  memory  of  words,  or  of  the  things  and  yerbal  d 
facts  represented  by  those  words?  Is  it  the  con-  rational 
crete  memory  which  carries  accurate  impressions 
of  visual  pictures  or  of  sounds,  or  is  it  the  abstract  memory 
which  retains  the  gist  and  meaning  of  what  has  been  heard  and 
seen?  No  doubt  it  is  good  to  secure  each  of  these  kinds  of 
power.  Some  people  who  are  keen  at  remembering  the  rela- 
tions between  events,  and  the  substance  of  what  they  hear,  have 
a  difficulty  in  remembering  mere  names  and  words.  But  if 
we  were  to  choose,  and  could  only  secure  one,  we  should  prefer 
to  have  the  memory  for  things  their  causes,  effects,  and  mutual 
relations,  rather  than  the  power  of  mere  verbal  reminiscence. 
In  schools,  however,  we  want  both,  and  it  is  a  great  point  in 
education  to  know  when  to  cultivate  the  one,  and  when  to  aim 
at  the  other.  If  you  hear  a  pupil  demonstrate  a  proposition  in 
Euclid,  you  want  memory  of  course,  but  it  is  the  memory  of  a 
logical  sequence,  and  not  of  particular  words.  In  fact,  if  you 
have  any  reason  to  suspect  that  he  has  learned  it  by  heart,  you 
at  once  change  A,  B,  O  on  the  diagram  to  X,  T,  Z,  or  adopt 
some  other  device  to  baffle  him.  For  to  turn  what  is  meant  as 
a  discipline  in  ratiocination  into  an  exercise  of  purely  verbal 
memory  destroys  the  whole  value  of  the  lesson,  and  makes 
nonsense  of  it.  And  if  you  have  been  giving  a  lesson  on  His- 
tory, and  have  described  say  the  period  of  the  English  Revolu- 
tion —  the  attempt  at  the  dispensing  power,  the  trial  of  the  seven 


128  Learning  and  Remembering. 

bishops,  the  bigotry  of  James  II.  and  the  final  catastrophe: 
you  want  all  these  facts  to  be  linked  together  in  their  due  cor- 
relation as  causes  and  effects;  and  when  they  are  reproduced  to 
come  up  again  as  facts,  in  words  supplied  by  your  pupil  and 
representing  his  own  thoughts,  not  in  the  particular  words 
which  you  happened  to  use  in  teaching.  In  these  cases  Mon- 
taigne's aphorism  applies  with  special  force,  Savoir  pa?'  cceur 
n'est  pas  savoir.  Nothing  would  be  gained,  but  much  would 
be  lost,  if  instead  of  requiring  him  thus  to  recall  the  events  in 
his  own  way,  you  set  him  to  learn  by  heart  some  sentences 
from  a  history  book  in  which  those  facts  were  summarized. 
The  associations  you  want  to  fix  in  the  memory  here  are  of 
events,  not  of  words  or  phrases. 

Are  there  then  no  occasions  on  which  it  is  wise  and  desirable 

Learning  by     *°  esta^^sn  verbal  associations  and  to  require  them 

heart,  when      to  be  committed  to  memory,  or  to  use  a  common 

ate'       expression,  to  be  learned  by  heart?    Undoubtedly 

there  are.    Let  us  look  at  them. 

(1)  There  are  in  arithmetic  and  in  all  the  exact  sciences  cer. 
tain  formulae  which  are  frequently  in  use,  which  have  con- 
stantly to  be  referred  to,  and  which  we  want  to  use  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice.  The  multiplication  table  for  example.  7  times 
9  make  63.  The  association  between  these  figures  is  apparently 
arbitrary.  Reflection  and  reasoning  would  not  help  me  much 
to  know  that  they  do  not  make  53;  and  when  I  am  working  a 
problem  in  which  the  fact  is  available,  I  do  not  want  to  reason 
or  reflect  at  all.  The  two  figures  should  suggest  63  instantane- 
ously by  a  mechanical  process,  and  without  a  moment's 
thought.  So  it  is  good  to  know  that  the  relation  of  the  diame- 
ter to  the  circumference  of  a  circle  is  expressed  by  the  figures 
1  and  3.14159,  because  this  fact  is  often  wanted  in  working 
out  problems  in  mensuration,  and  furnishes  a  key  to  the  rapid 
estimation  of  the  sizes  of  familiar  things.  In  the  case  of  each 
of  these  terse  and  fruitful  formulae,  we  observe  that  there  is 
one  thing  right  and  everything  else  is  wrong;  there  should  be 


Learning  by  Heart,  when  Legitimate.       129 

no  mistake  at  all  in  our  minds  in  regard  to  the  exact  truth;  and 
the  frequency  with  which  the  formula  becomes  of  use  fully 
justifies  us  in  the  labor  of  committing  it  to  memory. 

(2)  There  are  some  things  which  we  want  to  remember  in 
substance,  but  which  are  best  remembered  in  one  particular 
form.     Geometrical  definitions  and  axioms,  and  some  rules  in 
Latin  syntax,  are  of  this  kind.     They  have  been  carefully  re- 
duced to  the  simplest  form  of  expression,  it  is  specially  neces- 
sary that  they  should  be  applied  with  perfect  accuracy,  and 
we  therefore  do  well  to  have  them  in  our  mind  in  one  fixed 
and  concise  form. 

(3)  Again,  there  are  some  things  which  deserve  to  be  remem- 
bered as  much  on  account  of  the  special  form  they  assume  as 
on  that  of  the  truths  they  embody.     If  the  language  in  which 
a  truth  is  conveyed  has  any  special  authority,  any  historic  signii 
ficauce,  or  any  poetical  beauty,  the  language  itself  becomes  a 
thing  worth  appropriating,  over  and  above  the  thoughts  con- 
veyed in  that  language.     So  verses  of  poetry,  passages  from 
great  writers  and  orators,  formularies  of  faith,  wise  maxims  in 
which,  as  Lord  Russell  said,  the  wisdom  of  many  has  been 
fixed  and  concentrated  by  the  wit  of  one — all  these  are  worth 
learning  by  heart.    The  memory  is  enriched  by  a  store  of  strong 
thoughts  or  of  graceful  expressions; — a  great  and  pregnant  pas- 
sage from  Shakespeare,  a  few  fervid  and  finished  sentences 
from  an  oration  of  Burke,  a  piece  of  jewelled  eloquence  from 
one  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  sermons,  a  quaint  aphorism  from  old 
Fuller, -a  sweet  restful  poem  by  Wordsworth,  or  some  devout 
spiritual  utterance  of  George  Herbert  or  Keble,  has  a  precious- 
ness  of  its  own  which  depends  rather  on  its  artistic  excellence 
as  a  specimen  of  language,  than  on  its  value  as  a  statement  of 
truth.     And  it  is  this  very  artistic  excellence  which  gives  it  its 
special  claim  to  lie  garnered  in  the  store-house   of  memory. 
The  possessor  of  such  a  store  has  a  resource  in  hours  of  weari- 
ness or  dulness,  when  thoughts  are  sluggish  and  imagination  is 
weak.    He  goes  back  and  finds  that  by  recalling  such  utter- 

9 


130  Learning  and  Remembering. 

ances  his  thoughts  are  stimulated  and  his  emotions  ennobled.1 
But  this  would  not  happen  if  the  words  themselves  were  not 
felt  to  have  a  fitness  and  beauty  of  their  own. 

There  is  therefore  a  right  use  and  a  wrong  use  of  what  I  have 
for  my  present  purpose  called  by  the  rather  unscientific  name 
of  the  "  verbal  memory,"  or  what  is  generally  known  as  "  learn- 
ing by  heart."  This  too  is  not  a  felicitous  phrase,  for  of  all 
conceivable  employments  for  the  human  understanding,  this 
kind  of  task  work  has  the  least  "  heart"  in  it.  No  doubt  many 
teachers  have  been  accustomed  to  rely  too  much  on  the  power 
o£  remembering  words.  It  is  the  easiest  of  all  forms  of  school- 
keeping  to  say  "  Go  and  learn  that  lesson,  and  then  come  and 
say  it  to  me;"  and  accordingly,  setting  tasks  to  be  learned  by 
heart  is  the  chief,  almost  the  only,  resource  of  teachers  who 
cannot  teach  and  are  content  to  be  mere  pedagogic  machines. 
But  then  the  opposite  of  wrong  is  not  always  right;  and  in  the 
reaction  against  a  system  which  relied  wholly  on  the  memory 
and  never  appealed  to  the  judgment,  we  may  very  easily  make 
another  mistake  equally  great  by  discrediting  and  undervaluing 
the  memory,  by  treating  it  as  the  Cinderella  in  the  household 
of  the  human  faculties,  useful  merely  as  a  drudge. 

We  are,  I  hope,  prepared  now  to  come  to  a  true  conclusion 
Gener  1  rin  ^&  to  ^e  right  use  of  this  great  educational  instru- 
cipietobe  ment.  And  this  is  the  conclusion.  When  the 
ew'  object  is  to  have  thoughts,  facts,  reasonings  repro- 
duced, seek  to  have  them  reproduced  in  the  pupil's  own  words. 
Do  not  set  the  faculty  of  mere  verbal  memory  to  work.  But 
when  the  words  themselves  in  which  a  fact  is  embodied  have 
some  special  fitness  or  beauty  of  their  own,  when  they  repre- 
sent some  scientific  datum  or  central  truth,  which  could  not 
otherwise  be  so  well  expressed,  then  see  that  the  form  as  well 
as  the  substance  of  the  expression  is  learned  by  heart. 


1 "  What  we  want  for  ready  use  is  a  well-turned  sentence  form,  or  a 
suitable  designation  or  phrase  for  some  meaning  that  we  are  at  a  loss  to 
render."— BAIN. 


Task   Work  131 


And,  having  once  determined  that  this  is  worth  doing,  see 
that  it  is  thoroughly  done.  It  is  of  no  value  to  Thorough- 
learn  a  thing  by  heart  unless  it  is  learned  so  thor-  ness- 
oughly  that  it  can  be  recalled  without  the  least  mistake  and  at 
a  moment's  notice.  Other  lessons,  in  which  the  understanding 
is  chiefly  concerned,  may  be  only  partially  successful,  and  yet 
be  of  some  use.  A  lesson  half  understood  is  better  than  no  les- 
son at  all.  But  a  memoriter  lesson  half  learned — said  with  a 
few  promptings,  and  blundered  through  just  well  enough  to 
escape  serious  blame — is  sure  to  be  forgotten  directly  after- 
wards, and  simply  comes  to  nothing.  Yes,  it  does  come  to 
something.  It  leaves  behind  it  a  sense  of  wasted  time  and  a 
disgust  for  the  whole  subject  to  which  it  relates.  That  is 
all. 

Grant  also  that,  for  some  such  good  reason  as  I  have  named, 
you  determine  to  set  certain  lessons  to  be  learned  How  to  com_ 
by  heart,  it  is  well  to  give  pupils  a  hint  as  to  the  mit  to  mem- 
conditions  under  which  the  memory  lays  hold  of  a  ory' 
lesson  best.  Sitting  down  immediately  after  a  lesson  to  commit  a 
task  to  memory  is  a  bad  plan,  for  the  mind  is  not  then  in  its  most 
receptive  state.  All  persons  do  not  commit  tasks  to  memory  un- 
der precisely  the  same  conditions,  so  no  universal  rule  can  be 
laid  down.  To  many,  the  morning  when  the  mind  is  fresh  is  the 
best  time.  As  a  rule,  the  cerebral  activity  is  said  to  be  at  its 
height  within  two  or  three  hours  after  the  first  meal  of  the  day. 
Many  find  the  easiest  way  of  learning  by  heart  is  to  con  over 
the  lesson  just  before  going  to  bed,  and  then  they  discover  that 
in  the  morning  it  all  comes  to  them  with  much  greater  clear- 
ness. Some  philosophical  writers  have  pointed  out  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  unconscious  cerebration,  a  process  of  mind 
going  on  in  sleep,  and  at  other  times  when  we  are  not  con- 
scious, whereby  impressions  made  before  are  not  only  fixed, 
but  even  more  clearly  apprehended.  We  cannot  now  discuss 
this  theory;  but  it  is  certain  that  to  many  minds  the  expedient 
of  learning  a  thing  over  night  is  found  exceedingly  helpful  in 
economizing  the  conscious  effort  of  the  brain,  and  causes  the 


132  Learning  and  Remembering. 


thing  you  want  to  remember  to  come  up  with  curious  vivid- 
ness in  the  morning1. 

Again,  a  lesson  learned  in  school,  or  a  book  read  and  dis- 
Memory  to  be  missed  from  the  miud  the  moment  the  reading  is 
edPby6reflec-  over  or  tne  particular  purpose  is  served,  is  very 
tion.  apt  to  be  forgotten,  and  often  needs  to  be  learned 

over  again.  But  a  lesson  which  is  turned  round  and  round  in 
the  mind  again,  and  made  the  subject  of  rumination,  even  for 
a  few  minutes,  is  sure  to  become  part  of  the  permanent  furni- 
ture of  the  mind.  We  do  not  want  to  let  school-work  encroach 
on  the  whole  domain  of  life,  and  haunt  a  thoughtful  scholar  in 
all  his  hours  of  leisure.  But  we  may  not  forget  that  the  old 
way  in  which  the  Jews  were  exhorted  to  teach  their  children 
the  commandments  of  the  Lord  in  ages  when  there  were  no 
books,  was  a  true  way.  "  Thou  shall  teach  them  diligently  to 
thy  children,  and  shalt  talk  of  them  when  thou  sittest  in  thy 
house,  and  when  thou  walkest  by  the  way,  and  when  thou 
liest  down,  and  when  thou  risest  up."  Whatever  we  make  a 
subject  of  reflection  at  odd  times,  when  the  thoughts  are  at 
leisure,  is  sure  to  be  remembered.  If  a  scholar  can  only  be 
trained  to  the  habit  of  giving  ten  minutes  a  day,  in  a  walk,  or  hi 

1  "  Whatever  the  organic  process  in  the  brain,  it  takes  place,  like  the 
action  of  other  elements  of  the  body,  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  con- 
sciousness. We  are  not  aware  how  our  general  and  abstract  ideas  are 
formed;  the  due  material  is  consciously  supplied,  and  there  is  an  uncon- 
scious elaboration  of  the  result.  Mental  development  thus  represents  a 
sort  of  nutrition  and  organization ;  or  as  Milton  aptly  says  of  the  opin- 
ions of  good  men,  that  they  are  truth  in  the  making,  so  we  may  truly 
say  of  the  formation  of  our  general  and  complex  ideas,  that  it  is  mind 
in  the  making.  When  the  individual  brain  is  a  well-constituted  one  and 
has  been  duly  cultivated,  the  results  of  its  latent  activity,  rising  into 
consciousness  suddenly,  sometimes  seem  like  intuitions;  they  are 
strange  and  startling  as  the  products  of  a  dream  of  ttlmes  are  to  the 
person  who  has  actually  produced  them.  Hence  it  was  no  extravagant 
fancy  in  Plato  to  look  upon  them  as  reminiscences  of  a  previous  higher 
existence.  His  brain  was  a  brain  of  the  highest  order,  and  the  results  of 
its  unconscious  activity,  as  they  flashed  into  consciousness,  would  show 
like  revelations,  and  might  well  seem  intuitions  of  a  higher  life  quite 
beyond  the  reach  of  present  will."— Dr.  CARPENTER. 


Strengthening  the  Memory.  133 

a  quiet  evening,  to  asking  himself,  "What  have  I  learned,  and 
why  have  I  learned  it?"  and  to  the  act  of  trying  to  recall  it, 
and  to  think  out  some  illustration  of  it,  he  is  sure  to  make  great 
and  true  progress. 

There  is  one  very  common  excuse  often  urged  by  those  who 
make  an  excessive  use  of  task- work  in  teaching.  Memorv 
You  complain  of  their  setting  poor  scrappy  little  strengthened 
passages  of  grammar,  history,  or  geography  to  be  y  e 
learned  by  heart.  You  point  out  to  them  that  sentences  of  this 
kind  would  be  worthless  even  to  an  educated  man.  And  the 
answer  is,  they  are  useful  because  they  strengthen  the  memory. 
That  is  quite  true.  So  it  would  strengthen  my  memory  if  I 
learned  the  leading  article  of  this  morning's  Times  by  heart,  or 
the  names  of  all  the  Senior  Wranglers  in  regular  order  from  the 
beginning  of  the  century.  Moreover  it  is  just  conceivable  that 
some  day  these  acquisitions  would  turn  out  to  be  of  value.  In 
like  manner,  it  would  strengthen  the  muscles  of  a  man's  arm 
if  he  were  on  every  alternate  morning  to  dig  a  hole  in  his  gar- 
den, and  on  the  second  morning  regularly  and  laboriously  fill 
it  up  again.  But  it  is  better  perhaps  that  he  should  get  this 
exercise  in  digging  up  something  that  needs  to  be  dug.  The 
truth  is  that  life  is  not  long  enough,  and  our  faculties  are  not 
potent  enough,  to  justify  us  in  strengthening  the  memory  by 
learning  what  is  not  worth  remembering.  You  may  get 
the  same  discipline  for  your  faculties  by  learning  something 
which  has  a  value  of  its  own;  and  unless  what  you  propose  to 
lay  up  in  store  in  a  child's  mind  has  such  real  value,  and  is  of 
such  a  kind  that  you  yourself  would  find  it  fruitful  and  well 
worth  possessing  in  after-life,  the  use  you  mean  to  make  of  the 
faculty  is  illegitimate  and  unwise. 

Now  in  the  light  of  the  principles  thus  laid  down  let  me  ask 
myself  one  or  two  questions.     Shall  I  learn  by  heart   Tests  of 

a  list  of  the  prepositions  which  govern  a  dative,  and   risht  and 

•   .,  .  .  wrong  forms 

ot  tne  prepositions  which  govern  an  ablative,  in   of  memory 

Latin?    Yes.     For  these  are  idiomatic  laws  which   lesson- 

are  essential  to  me  in  Latin  composition  as  well  as  in  translation: 


134  Learning  and  Remembering. 

they  are  largely  arbitrary,  and  I  could  not  recall  them  easily  by 
any  effort  of  reflection.  Shall  I  learn  the  definitions  of  the 
parts  of  speech  given  by  grammarians?  No.  "An  article  is  a 
word  placed  before  a  noun  to  show  the  extent  of  its  meaning." 
If  I  did  not  know  what  an  article  is  without  the  help  of  this 
definition,  I  should  never  tell  it  by  means  of  it.  Moreover, 
there  are  a  good  many  other  ways  of  defining  parts  of  speech 
quite  as  good  as  those  in  any  given  grammar,  and  so  long  as  I 
know  thoroughly  the  distinction  itself,  the  more  varied  is  the 
form  in  which  I  can  define  it  the  better.  Shall  I  learn  the 
number  of  yards  in  a  mile,  the  formula  for  the  square  of  (a  -\-  &), 
or  the  trigonometrical  expression  for  the  area  of  a  triangle  in 
terms  of  its  sides?  Yes.  For  these  are  central  and  most  ser- 
viceable truths,  constantly  wanted  in  the  solution  of  problems, 
and  often  wanted  in  a  hurry.  Will  it  be  well  to  learn  the 
logarithms  of  all  numbers  up  to  100,  the  number  of  pints  in  a 
hogshead,  or  the  number  of  inches  in  a  Flemish  ell?  No,  I 
think  I  will  not  encumber  my  memory  with  facts  so  seldom 
wanted,  so  little  known  outside  of  a  school-room,  and  so  very 
easy  to  find,  if  by  chance  there  should  be  any  occasional  need 
for  them.  Shall  I  set  my  pupils  to  learn  by  heart  an  extract 
from  Scott's  Marmion?  Well,  I  think  not.  For  it  is  not  likely 
to  have  any  unity  of  its  own.  It  is  a  fragment  of  a  longer 
narrative,  and  is  unintelligible  without  the  rest;  and  since  it  is 
unreasonable  to  expect  that  the  rest  will  be  remembered,  the 
fragment  will  soon  drop  out  of  recollection  altogether.  Shall 
I  set  him  to  learn  part  of  Goldsmith's  Traveller,  or  Gray's 
Elegy,  or  Wordsworth's  Ode  on  Immortality?  Yes.  For  every 
couplet  here  is  a  picture  or  thought  in  itself.  Any  one  line 
will  help  to  recall  the  lines  related  to  it;  and  even  if  it  does  not 
do  so,  it  has  a  value  and  suggestiveness  of  its  own.  Shall  I 
learn  the  dates  of  the  English  kings,  the  latitude  of  London, 
and,  at  least  approximately,  the  size  of  this  island,  and  the  pop- 
ulation of  its  five  or  six  largest  towns?  Yes,  because  England 
is  my  home,  because  it  interests  me  more  than  any  other  place 
in  the  world,  and  because  all  these  facts  will  be  useful  as  fixed 


Printed  Catechisms.  135 

points  of  comparison  round  which  all  my  constantly  increasing 
acquaintance  with  it  and  its  history,  and  with  other  places,  will 
cluster  and  arrange  itself.  Shall  I  learn  the  dates  of  the  Popes, 
a  list  of  the  departments  of  France,  the  figures  which  give  me 
the  length  of  the  Mississippi,  or  the  latitude  and  longitude  of 
Timbuctoo?  No.  I  think  I  would  rather  not  know  these 
things.  I  should  like  to  know  where  the  book  is  where  I  can 
find  them  on  the  rare  occasions  on  which  I  may  want  them, 
and  I  should  also  like  to  know  how  to  consult  it.  What  Mr. 
Latham  calls  the  Index  memory  is  all  I  want  here,  the  knowl- 
edge of  where  to  look  for  what  I  want,  and  how  to  look  for  it. 
But  as  to  carrying  such  lumber  about  as  part  of  my  mental 
furniture  through  life,  I  will  certainly  not  do  it,  unless  you 
compel  me;  and  if  you  force  me  to  learn  it,  I  will  try  to  forget 
it  as  soon  as  I  am  out  of  your  reach.  Shall  I  learn  the  Creed, 
the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Ten  Commandments  by  heart? 
Well— assuming  of  course  that  I  accept  them  as  true  representa- 
tions of  my  faith  and  duty — certainly.  For  they  are  venerable 
formularies,  which  come  to  us  with  very  sacred  associations 
and  with  a  great  weight  of  authority.  They  have  shaped  the 
conduct  and  guided  the  devotions  of  my  Christian  forefathers 
for  centuries,  and  they  are  presumably  expressed  in  the  choicest, 
tersest,  and  most  weighty  words  which  tradition  has  been  able 
to  bestow  upon  us.  Shall  I  learn  by  heart  the  historical  com- 
pendium of  the  ingenious  Mangnall?  Not  if  I  can  help  it.  Let 
me  read  to  you  two  or  three  questions  and  answers  from  that 
author. 

What  became  of  the  Druids?  They  were  almost  entirely  extirpated 
when  the  Roman  peneral  Suetonius  Paulinus  took  the  island,  or  Anglesea, 
in  the  year  61,  and  Agricola  a  second  time  in  78. 

How  were  the  public  events  transmitted  to  posterity  wJien  the  Britons 
were  ignorant  of  printing  and  writing?  By  their  bards  or  poets,  who 
were  the  only  depositaries  of  national  events. 

What  Roman  emperor  projected  an  invasion  of  Britain,  gathered 
only  shells  upon  the  coast,  and  then  returned  to  Rome  in  triumph?  Ca- 
ligula, in  the  year  40. 

What  British  generals  distinguished  themselves   before  the   Saxon 


136  Learning  and  Remembering. 

Heptarchy  was  formed?  Cassivelaunus,  defeated  by  Julius  Caesar  in  54 
B.C.,  and  Caractacus,  defeated  and  taken  by  Ostorius  in  51  A.D.,  and  sent 
a  prisoner  to  Rome  in  the  following  year. 

What  was  the  exclamation  of  Caractacus  when  led  in  triumph 
through  Rome?  How  is  it  possible  that  a  people  possessed  of  such  mag- 
nificence should  envy  me  a  humble  cottage  in  Britain! 

Now  suppose  I  learn  this  lesson  by  heart,  you  observe  that 
Books  of  every  answer  consists  of  about  one  third  or  fourth 
question  and  of  a  statement,  of  which  all  the  rest  lies  in  the 
question.  And  the  question  is  not  learnt  by  heart. 
So  the  fragment  actually  committed  to  memory  is  incomplete 
and  means  nothing.  Even  if  the  question  were  remembered, 
the  separate  facts  thus  learned  are  incoherent  and  unrelated, 
and  so,  though  concerned  with  one  of  the  most  interesting  of 
all  subjects,  are  made  profoundly  uninteresting.  To  print  a 
book  of  questions  and  answers  is  to  assume  that  there  is  to  be 
no  real  contact  of  thought  between  sAolar  and  master,  that  all 
the  questions  which  are  to  be  asked  are  to  take  one  particular 
form,  and  that  they  all  admit  of  but  one  answer.  There  is  no 
room  for  inquisitiveness  on  the  part  of  the  learner,  nor  for  di- 
gression on  the  part  of  the  teacher,  no  room  for  the  play  of  the 
intelligence  of  either  around  the  subject  in  hand;  the  whole 
exercise  has  been  devised  to  convert  a  study  which  ought  to 
awaken  intelligence,  into  a  miserable  mechanical  performance; 
and  two  people  who  ought  to  be  in  intimate  intellectual  rela- 
tions with  each  other,  into  a  brace  of  impostors — the  one  teach- 
ing nothing,  the  other  learning  nothing,  but  both  acting  a  part 
and  reciting  somebody  else's  words  out  of  a  book.  It  is  said 
that  there  are  schools  in  existence  in  which  Hangnail's  Ques- 
tions is  actually  still  in  use  as  a  task-book  to  be  learned  by 
heart,  and  that  new  editions  of  it  are  in  constant  demand.  It 
is  appalling  to  think  of  the  way  in  which  whole  generations  of 
English  girls  and  boys  have  been  stupefied  by  this  book  and  by 
others  like  it. 

It  will  be  seen  on  further  consideration  that  many  of  the 
metaphors  we  are  accustomed  to  use  about  memory  are  like  all 


Memory  and  Intelligence.  137 

metaphors  when  applied  to  the  region  of  our  inner  and  spirit- 
ual life— a  little  misleading.  To  speak  of  mem-  Memorynota 
ory  as  a  receptacle  which  may  be  filled,  or  as  a  receptacle  to 
chain  which  may  draw  treasure  up  from  a  well, 
is  to  imply  that  memory  is  a  limited  power.  And  this  is  not 
true.  It  is  capable  of  indefinite  increase  and  improvement  by 
exercise.  Nevertheless,  minds  which  are  differently  constituted 
will  develop  in  different  ways,  and  when  we  have  subjected 
them  all  to  the  same  discipline  there  will  remain  great  diversi- 
ties of  result.  To  some  the  memory  will  be  specially  retentive 
in  regard  to  names  and  words,  to  some  the  recollection  of  places 
and  persons  will  be  easier  than  that  of  the  names  which  desig- 
nate them.  An  unreasoning  person  may  catch  up  by  ear  the 
words  of  a  foreign  tongue  with  far  greater  readiness  than  one 
whose  habits  of  mind  lead  him  to  be  always  on  the  watch  for 
the  laws  of  language  and  for  illustrations  of  comparative  phi- 
lology. We  need  not  seek  to  obliterate  these  distinctions.  Even 
a  deficiency  in  the  power  of  carrying  a  truth  in  the  exact  form 
in  which  we  first  received  it  may  coexist  with  the  power  of  re- 
cording that  truth  by  a  process  of  reflection  in  some  other  and 
possibly  better  form.  Thucydides  and  Lord  Bolingbroke  went 
so  far  as  to  complain  of  the  possession  of  a  memory  so  prodi- 
gious, so  indiscriminately  tenacious,  that  it  was  rather  a  hin- 
drance than  a  help  to  their  intellectual  activity.  "Some  peo- 
ple," says  Archbishop  Whately,  "have  been  intellectually 
damaged  by  having  what  is  called  a  good  memory.  An  un- 
skilful teacher  is  content  to  put  before  children  all  they  ought 
to  learn,  and  to  take  care  that  they  remember  it;  and  so,  though 
the  memory  is. retentive,  the  mind  is  left  in  a  passive  state;  and 
men  wonder  that  he  who  was  so  quick  at  learning  and  remem- 
bering should  not  be  an  able  man,  which  is  as  reasonable  as  to 
wonder  that  a  cistern,  if  filled,  should  not  be  a  perpetual  foun- 
tain. Many  men  are  saved  by  the  deficiency  of  their  memory 
from  being  spoiled  by  their  education;  for  those  who  have  an 
extraordinary  memory  are  driven  to  supply  its  place  by  think- 
ing. If  they  do  not  remember  a  mathematical  demonstration 


138  Learning  and  Remembering. 

they  are  driven  to  devise  one.     If  they  do  not  remember  what 
Aristotle  or  Bacon  said,  they  are  driven  to  consider  what  they 
are  likely  to  have  said,  or  ought  to  have  said." 
Thus,  while  we  do  well  to  mark  deficiencies  in  any  one  par- 
ticular form  of  memory  among  our  pupils,  and  to 
suPPty  appropriate  exercises  for  removing  them, 


tteir  purpose*  we  ma^  ^  cons°led  to  remember  that  there  are 
compensations  for  these  deficiencies.  It  is  most 
undesirable  that  all  minds  should  conform,  or  be  made  to  con- 
form, to  the  same  type,  and  so  long  as  by  some  process  or 
other  —  the  verbal  association  or  the  logical  association  —  the 
mind  can  be  led  back  to  the  truth  once  known,  and  that  the 
truth  can  be  so  recovered  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  now 
required,  we  may  be  well  content.  Only  let  us  in  teaching 
anything  always  give  the  impression  that  it  will  be  wanted 
again.  Let  us  remember  that  our  minds  refuse  to  retain  mere 
isolated  facts  which  are  not  associated  with  something  which 
we  knew  before,  or  which  we  hope  to  know  hereafter.  It  is 
by  frequent  recapitulation,  by  recalling  the  work  of  other 
lessons,  by  showing  the  relation  between  the  past,  the  present 
and  the  future  stages  of  learning,  that  we  encourage  the  student 
to  make  that  effort  of  attention  which  is  indispensable  to  re- 
membering. This  is  why  so  many  of  the  memory  exercises 
which  are  given  in  schools  are  so  barren  of  result.  They  lead 
to  nothing  of  which  the  scholar  can  see  the  value. 

Up  to  a  certain  time  in  the  course  of  learning  any  subject  its 
„         .  details  seem  dry  and  uninteresting,  and  are  learned 

bearing  stage  by  a  conscious  and  not  always  agreeable  effort. 
some*  subjects  But  there  comes  a  moment,  say  in  the  learning  of  a 
language,  when  the  learner  catches  its  spirit,  re- 
ceives a  new  idea  through  its  means,  actually  uses 
it  as  an  instrument  of  thought.  From  that  moment  all  the 
gerund  grinding,  the  weary  exercises  in  vocabulary  and  gram- 
mar, have  a  new  meaning  and  value.  Knowledge  has  passed 
into  the  form  of  culture,  and  the  memory  exercises  all  prove 
to  have  served  their  purpose.  So  in  arithmetic  and  mathe- 


The  Use  of  Forgotten  Knowledge.  139 

matics,  the  moment  the  student  perceives  the  principle  of  8 
rule,  the  process  ceases  to  be  mechanical  and  becomes  intelli- 
gent. Here  the  fruit-bearing  stage  of  the  study  comes  earlier 
than  in  language,  and  it  may  be  said  that  an  elementary  know- 
ledge in  this  department,  even  if  it  stop  short  at  the  elements, 
is  worth  something.  But  if  the  fruit-bearing  stage  is  not 
reached,  if  the  study  is  not  carried  far  enough  to  enable  a 
student  to  receive  or  express  a  thought  by  means  of  the  lan- 
guage, much  of  the  time  spent  in  acquiring  the  rudiments  is 
absolutely  wasted.  There  is  nothing  in  the  future  life  of  the 
student  to  recall  to  him  what  he  has  learned,  and  much  of  it 
comes  to  nothing. 

Yet  it  would  not  be  right  to  conclude  that  all  knowledge 
which  is  forgotten  has  failed  to  serve  a  useful  pur-  The  ugeg  of 
pose.  It  may  be  forgotten  in  the  form  in  which  forgotten 
it  has  been  received,  but  it  may  reappear  in  knowled&e- 
another.  What  is  true  in  the  vegetable  world  is  often  true  in 
the  world  of  spirit  and  of  thought:  "Except  a  corn  of  wheat 
fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone."  It  comes  to 
nothing.  The  condition  of  its  germinating  and  giving  birth  to 
something  better  than  itself  is  that  it  shall  die;  and  that  it  shall 
cease  to  retain  the  exact  shape  and  character  which  it  had  at 
first.  It  is  true  that  what  is  hastily  acquired  is  hastily  lost. 
What  is  consciously  got  up  for  some  temporary  purpose  drops 
out  of  the  mind  and  leaves  no  trace.  Like  Jonah's  gourd,  it 
comes  up  in  a  night  and  perishes  in  a  night.  It  is  not  of  this 
I  speak.  But  all  knowledge  once  honestly  acquired  and  made 
a  subject  of  thought  germinates,  even  though  in  time  it  be- 
comes unrecognizable,  and  seems  to  disappear  altogether.  It 
has  fulfilled  its  purpose,  has  deepened  a  conviction,  has  formed 
the  legitimate  ground  for  some  conclusion  on  which  in  turn 
something  else  has  been  built;  and  it  gives  to  the  learner  a 
sense  of  freedom  and  of  elbow-room  when  in  after-life  he  is 
dealing  with  it  and  cognate  subjects,  such  as  he  could  not  pos- 
sibly experience  if  the  subject  were  wholly  new  to  him.  Rules 
serve  their  purpose  if  they  form  our  habits  of  speech  or  of 


140  Learning  and  Remembering. 

action,  even  though  these  habits  are  not  consciously  obedient  to 
the  rules,  and  although  the  rules  themselves  could  not  be  re- 
stated in  an  explicit  form.  A  demonstration  in  mathematics 
has  done  its  work  if,  for  the  time,  it  gave  an  insight  into  the 
true  method  of  reasoning,  even  though  in  later  life  we  utterly 
fail  to  remember  the  theorem  or  the  proof.  So  the  exact  char- 
acter of  a  set  of  experimental  illustrations  in  physics  may  be 
entirely  forgotten;  yet  if  the  truth  they  illustrated  was  by  their 
help  fastened  on  the  mind,  and  has  subsequently  been  seen  in 
wider  and  more  varied  application,  we  have  no  right  to  say 
that  the  original  effort  has  been  wasted. 

The  thoughts  and  experiences  which  make  up  the  sum  of 
our  mental  life  in  different  years  vary  as  much  as  the  particles 
that  compose  the  body.  Some  disappear  and  others  take  their 
place.  But  the  life  is  the  same  so  long  as  there  is  continuity 
and  health.  Personal  identity  consists,  not  in  sameness  of  sub- 
stance, but  in  continuity  of  life.  So  the  relation  of  what  you 
teach  to  the  permanent  thoughts  and  work  of  the  pupil  con- 
sists in  its  capacity  for  development  into  something  not  itself, 
but  akin  to  itself,  better  than  itself.  Here  then  is  one  of  the 
tests  of  our  school-lessons.  Grant  that  as  school-lessons  they 
will  be  forgotten.  Let  us  reconcile  ourselves  to  this  as  inevi- 
table, and  ask  in  relation  to  everything  which  we  teach:  "  Is  it 
germinating  and  fruit-bearing,  or  not?  When  the  husk  and  shell 
shall  have  decayed,  will  there  be  anything  left?  If  so,  what? 
Will  this  bit  of  knowledge  drop  wholly  out  of  the  memory  and 
leave  no  trace?  If  so,  I  will  not  teach  it,  though  it  is  in  the 
text-book.  Or  will  it,  even  though  it  looks  crabbed  and  un- 
practical, make  the  perception  of  some  larger  and  more  useful 
truth  easy;  will  it  leave  some  effect  in  the  form  of  improved 
taste,  truer  judgment,  or  increased  power  to  balance  opposing 
facts?  If  so,  I  will  have  it  learned,  even  though  I  know  it  will 
be  forgotten;  and  I  will  feel  thankful  that  there  is  an  art  of 
wisely  forgetting,  as  well  as  one  of  useful  remembering." 

The  main  instruments  for  obtaining  knowledge  and  storing 
the  memory  are  three:  oral  exposition;  self-tuition  and  reflec- 


Oral  Instruction.  141 

tion;  and  book  or  task-work.  Of  the  reaction  in  modern  times 
against  the  too  frequent  use  of  books  and  tasks  I  c^f  instm- 
have  already  spoken.  And  there  can  be  little  j^J^^  (1) 
doubt  that  this  reaction  is  right,  and  that  as  peo-  Oral  instruc- 
ple  get  a  worthier  and  truer  perception  of  the  * 
nature  of  teaching,  oral  instruction  comes  to  be  more  valued. 
It  is  chiefly  by  means  of  the  living  voice  that  scholars  can 
be  really  inspired;  it  is  only  when  the  eyes  meet  itsadvanta- 
and  expression  and  gestures  are  seen,  and  tones  £es- 
are  heard,  that  there  arises  that  subtle  and  indefinable  sympathy 
between  teacher  and  taught,  which  is  so  essential  to  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  scholar.  Then  only  can  there  be  that  adap- 
tation of  the  matter  to  his  wants;  the  light  glancing  over  un- 
important details,  the  rest  and  repetition  over  the  more  signifi- 
cant facts,  the  pause  after  what  is  exceptionally  difficult,  the 
happy  illustration,  the  argumentum  ad  Jiominem,  the  brisk  and 
pointed  question  by  which  the  teacher  assures  himself  that  he 
is  being  followed  and  understood.  For  all  this  the  teacher 
wants  fluency,  fertility  and  quickness  of  resource,  care  in  the 
choice  of  his  language,  a  lucidus  ordo  in  his  arrangement;  a 
power  of  putting  the  same  truth  in  several  different  lights;  a 
quick  insight  in  discovering  what  are  the  difficulties  in  the 
learner's  mind,  and  in  removing  each  difficulty  when  it  occurs; 
a  certain  tact  which  tells  him  when  he  may  safely  hasten,  when 
he  ought  to  linger,  how  fast  he  should  go,  and  where  he 
ought  to  stop. 

There  is  room  then  for  something  in  the  nature  of  a  lecture, 
for  the  collective  or  class  lesson,  in  connection  with  every  sub- 
ject you  teach. 

But  while  such  teaching  is  after  all  the  great  vitalizing  in- 

strument  in  education,  we  may  not  forget  that,  if  , 

Its  dangers, 
too  exclusively  relied  on,  it  has  its  drawbacks. 

There  is  first  the  danger  lest  the  teacher  should  mistake  the 
signs  of  collective  animation  for  individual  progress.  The 
whole  may  seem  interested,  and  yet  the  units  composing  the 
whole  may  be  very  imperfectly  taught.  The  sympathetic  in- 


142  Learning  and  Remembering. 

fluence  arising  from  the  presence  of  numbers,  all  of  whom  are 
working  together  to  the  same  end,  has  the  effect  of  awakening 
interest;  but  it  has  also  the  disadvantage  of  making  this  result 
seem  greater  than  it  is.  Then  a  skilful  oral  teacher  often 
anticipates  difficulties,  seeks  to  exemplify  and  explain  every- 
thing, and  in  this  way  leaves  the  scholar  too  little  to  do  for 
himself.  He  stimulates  attention,  but  he  does  not  strengthen 
the  habit  of  independent  research.  Too  great  reliance  on  the 
lecture  system  is  apt  also  to  lead  pupils  to  reproduce  every- 
thing which  has  been  taught  in  the  teacher's  own  words. 
Besides,  in  the  desire  to  make  things  interesting  the  teacher  is 
fain  to  indulge  in  generalizations,  in  picturesque  statements, 
which  though  true  and  right  as  the  result  of  a  knowledge  of 
data,  are  extremely  pretentious  and  unreal  without  such  data. 
And  the  effect  on  a  learner's  mind  of  letting  him  see  the  whole 
without  showing  him  the  parts,  and  of  encouraging  him  to 
accept  a  general  induction  without  knowing  the  particulars  on 
which  it  has  been  based,  is  sometimes  very  mischievous. 

These  are  dangers  inseparably  connected  with  the  lecturing 
or  expository  system.  They  beset  in  a  special  way  the  most 
earnest  and  sympathetic  teachers.  They  are  to  be  guarded 
against  (1)  by  the  incessant  use  of  oral  questions  during  the 
lesson;  (2)  by  requiring  that  note-taking  during  the  lesson 
shall  be  limited  to  a  few  significant  headings  or  technical 
words,  and  shall  not  reproduce  the  phrases  or  sentences  of  the 
teacher;  (3)  by  causing  the  substance  of  the  whole  lesson  to  be 
thought  out,  and  in  part  written  out  after  the  delivery  of  it  is 
finished;  (4)  and,  above  all,  by  taking  care  to  leave  something 
substantial  for  the  learner  to  do,  to  find  out,  or  to  arrange  for 
himself. 

For  after  all  we  may  not,  in  our  zeal  for  the  improvement 
(2)  Self-tui-  of  schools  as  places  of  instruction,  forget  that 
tion.  some  of  the  best  work  of  our  own  lives  has  taken 

the  form  of  self -tuition.  Consider  the  multitude  of  great  and 
famous  men  who  have  struggled  to  master  problems  without 
any  external  aid,  and  consider  too  how  precious  and  abiding 


Book-work.  143 


knowledge  won  by  our  own  efforts  always  is.  It  is  true  boys 
and  girls  do  not  come  to  school  mainly  for  what  is  called  self- 
tuition,  but  for  help  and  guidance;  nevertheless,  it  is  a  good 
rule  never  to  tell  them  what  you  could  make  them  tell  you; 
never  to  do  for  them  what  they  could  do  for  themselves. 
Your  teaching  is  not  to  supersede  books,  but  rather  to  lead 
them  to  the  right  use  of  books.  You  have  been  studying  e.g. 
for  a  time  the  history  of  Edward  III. ;  you  want  to  gather  it  all 
up,  and  to  give  unity  to  the  impression  of  that  particular  period 
left  on  the  mind  of  the  learners.  You  give  therefore  a  short 
catechetical  lecture  on  the  life  of  Wyclif,  whom  you  select  as  a 
representative  man  of  the  time.  But  you  would  not  do  well 
even  to  try  to  make  such  a  lecture  exhaustive.  Something 
should  be  left  for  the  pupils  to  hunt  out  by  themselves.  A 
good  teacher  will  say:  "  I  have  tried  to  sketch  out  the  main 
incidents  and  drift  of  Wyclif's  life,  and  I  want  you  in  the 
course  of  next  week  to  write  a  biography,  as  complete  as  you 
can.  You  will  find  additional  information  in  Longman's  book, 
and  in  Chaucer's  Prologue,  in  Pauli's  Pictures  of  Old  England, 
and  in  Palgrave's  Merchant  and  the  Friar.  Do  not  think  it 
necessary  to  follow  the  order  I  have  sketched,  or  to  make  the 
same  estimate  of  his  character  which  I  have  given,  if  you  find 
any  facts  which  seem  to  tend  the  other  way. "  Be  sure  that  if, 
as  the  result  of  your  teaching,  your  pupils  seem  indisposed  to 
read  for  themselves,  if  they  get  the  impression  that  all  that 
needs  to  be  known  will  be  told  them  by  yourself,  then  there  is 
a  fatal  flaw  even  in  the  most  animated  oral  lessons,  and  your 
methods  need  to  be  revised. 

Book- work  for  lessons  has  obvious  advantages.    It  is  defi- 
nite.    It   puts  into  a  concise  and  rememberable   (3)  Book- 
form, — it  focusses,  so  to  speak,  much  of  what  is  work- 
treated  discursively  in  oral  lessons.    It  can  be  revised  again 
and  again,  as  often  as  is  necessary,  until  it  is  understood. 
Just  as  oral  teaching  is  the  main  instrument  for  awakening  in- 
telligence, so  book-work  is  the  chief  safeguard  for  accuracy, 
clearness  of  impression,  and  permanence.    "We  cannot  do  with- 


144  Learning  and  Remembering. 

out  either.  It  is  however  the  best  teachers  who  are  most  in 
danger  of  undervaluing  set  lessons  from  books.  It  is  the 
worst,  or  at  least  the  commonplace,  the  indolent,  the  unin- 
spired teachers  who  have  a  constant  tendency  to  overvalue 
them.  As  I  have  already  said,  it  is  the  easiest  of  all  forms  of 
teaching  to  set  a  book  lesson,  and  to  say,  "  Go  and  prepare  it." 
It  is  because  it  is  so  easy  that  a  good  teacher  will  always  exer- 
cise special  watchfulness  over  himself,  and  ask  before  setting 
a  lesson,  "Is  this  really  the  best  way  of  effecting  my  pur- 
pose?" 

Before  descending  to  detail  and  offering  rules  as  to  task  and 
Its  short-  book  work,  it  may  be  well  to  go  back  a  long  way 
comings.  for  a  few  moments,  to  ask  you  to  consider  how 
the  relation  of  written  work  to  intellectual  exertion  is  illustrat- 
ed in  the  Phcedrus,  one  of  the  dialogues  of  Plato.  Socrates  is 
pointing  out  to  one  of  his  disciples  how  easy  it  is  for  a  student 
to  mistake  means  for  ends,  and  to  make  the  art  of  writing 
rather  a  substitute  for  mental  effort  than  an  aid  to  it. 

"I  will  tell  you  a  story,  my  dear  Phaedrus.  Theuth  was  one  of  the 
ancient  gods  of  Egypt,  who  was  the  first  to  invent  arithmetic  and  geom- 
etry, and  draughts  and  dice,  but  especially  letters.  Now  Thamus  was 
at  this  time  the  king  of  Egypt,  and  dwelt  in  the  great  city  of  Thebes. 
To  him  Theuth  went  and  showed  him  all  the  arts  which  he  had  devised, 
and  asked  him  to  make  them  known  to  the  rest  of  the  Egyptians.  Tha- 
mus asked  him  what  was  the  use  of  each.  But  when  they  came  to  the 
letters,  'This  knowledge,  O  king,'  said  the  deity,  '  will  make  thy  people 
wiser,  for  I  have  invented  it  both  as  a  medicine  for  memory  and  for  wis- 
dom.' But  the  king  answered:  'Most  ingenious  Theuth,  it  is  for  you  to 
find  out  cunning  inventions,  it  is  for  others  to  judge  of  their  worth  and 
their  nobleness.  But  methinks  you,  out  of  fondness  for  your  own  dis- 
covery, have  attributed  to  it  precisely  the  opposite  effect  to  that  which 
it  will  have.  For  this  invention  will  produce  forgetfulness  on  the  part 
of  those  who  use  it,  since  by  trusting  to  writing  they  will  remember  out- 
wardly by  means  of  foreign  marks,  and  not  inwardly  by  means  of  their 
own  faculties.  You  are  providing  for  my  people  the  appearance  rather 
than  the  reality  of  wisdom.  For  they  will  think  they  have  got  hold  of 
something  valuable  when  they  only  possess  themselves  of  written  words, 
and  they  will  deem  themselves  wise  without  being  so.'  What  say  you, 
my  Pnaedrus,  did  the  king  speak  truly? 


Home  Exercises.  145 

"  '  I  think,  Socrates,  that  you  can  make  up  stories  from  Egypt  or  any 
other  country  you  please,  when  you  want  to  prove  anything.' 

"  Nay,  but  my  dear  PhsBdrus,  consider  not  where  the  story  comes 
from,  but  whether  it  is  true.  For  in  the  old  days  men  were  ready  in  the 
groves  of  Dodona,  and  in  other  places,  to  listen  to  an  oak  or  a  stone,  pro- 
vided it  spoke  the  truth.  And  consider  further,  my  Phsedrus,  that  writ- 
ten discourses  have  this  disadvantage,  they  seem  as  if  they  were  alive 
and  possessed  some  wisdom,  but  if  you  ask  them  to  explain  anything 
they  say,  they  preserve  a  solemn  silence,  or  give  at  best  but  one  and  the 
selfsame  answer.  And  once  written,  every  discourse  is  tossed  about 
and  read  alike  by  those  who  understand  it  and  by  those  whom  it  in  no- 
wise concerns,  and  it  knows  not  to  whom  to  speak,  and  to  whom  to  be 
silent.  But  after  all,  if  writing  is  to  be  of  any  service,  it  must  be  to  re- 
call that  which  is  already  known  and  understood;  and  unless  knowledge 
is  shaped  and  fixed  in  a  learner's  soul,  it  is  of  no  value  at  all." 

Perhaps  this  old  Greek  apologue  may  not  be  without  a  use- 
ful bearing  upon  the  next  practical  question  be   Character- 
fore  us.    ' '  What  are  the  conditions  on  which  book-   home 
work  and  written  exercises,  especially  those  done   cises. 
out  of  school  are  most  likely  to  serve  a  useful  educational  pur- 
pose?" 

The  first  of  these  conditions  is  that  the  exercises  should  not 
be  too  long.  Children  under  twelve  should  not  They  should 
be  asked  to  do  home  work  which  takes  more  than  not  ®e  lon£- 
an  hour,  nor  scholars  of  any  age  to  do  more  than  can  be  fairly 
done  in  two  hours.  A  good  teacher  will  ask  the  parents  to 
inform  him  if  the  time  devoted  to  home  exercises  exceeds  this 
limit,  and  if  it  proves  to  do  so,  the  lesson  should  be  dimin- 
ished in  amount.  Nor  should  lessons  given  to  be  prepared  at 
home  be  such  as  require  or  presuppose  intelligent  assistance. 
It  is  not  fair  for  a  teacher  to  relegate  much  of  his  own  work 
to  the  parent.  It  may  be  that  your  pupil  is  so  circumstanced 
that  he  has  no  access  at  home  to  scholarly  help;  and  in  that 
case  you  impose  an  unreasonable  burden  on  him,  and  your 
task  will  not  be  done.  And  if  he  has  access  to  such  help,  the 
beneficent  influence  of  an  intelligent  home  will  produce  far 
more  effect  in  ordinary  intercourse  than  if  father  or  mother  is 
reduced  to  the  role  of  a  school  assistant.  Home  has  its  own 
10 


146  Learning  and  Remembering. 

sacredness,  and  its  own  appropriate  forms  of  training.  Do  not 
let  the  school  exercises  encroach  too  far  upon  it. 

Home  lessons  should  be  very  definite,  and  admit  of  easy  cor- 
Thev  should  recti°n-  They  have  no  value,  and  they  encourage 
be  very  carelessness,  unless  they  are  thoroughly  examined. 

Think  well  then  before  setting  them  whether  you 
have  leisure  and  teaching  power  enough  to  examine  them  criti- 
cally. And  to  this  end  let  an  exercise  of  this  kind  be  as  far  as 
possible  such  as  admits  of  only  one  way  of  being  right,  so  that 
it  may  be  perfectly  clear  if  it  is  wrong  how  and  why  it  is 
wrong.  Remember  that  exercises  may  be  very  easy  to  set,  but 
very  difficult  to  examine  and  test.  Nothing  is  easier  after  a 
lesson  than  to  say,  "  Write  me  to-night  an  account  of  what  has 
been  said  to-day."  But  when  the  exercises  come  in  you  will 
find  that  there  are  a  dozen  different  forms  of  right  and  a  hun- 
dred ways  in  which  it  is  possible  to  be  wrong;  and  that  to 
bring  the  merits  and  defects  clearly  before  the  mind  of  your 
pupils  implies  discussion  and  lengthy  personal  interviews  with 
each  child,  which,  however  valuable,  take  too  much  time. 
And  unless  you  have  the  time  to  spare,  do  not  try  it;  but  keep 
to  lists,  names,  definitions,  facts,  of  which  you  can  say  at  once 
whether  they  are  right  or  wrong. 
They  should  One  great  advantage  of  very  definite  lessons  is 

ready  correc-  that  thev  often  admit  of  bein&  expeditiously  cor- 
tion.  rected  in  class,  by  the  method  of  mutual  revision. 

The  exercise  books  change  hands,  and  each  scholar  takes  a 
pencil  for  the  marking  of  mistakes,  while  the  teacher  publicly 
goes  through  the  questions,  causing  the  answers  to  be  read,  and 
criticising  them  when  they  are  wrong.  After  errors  have  been 
marked,  they  are  handed  back  to  the  original  writers.  This  is 
not  the  only  way  of  correcting  exercises,  and  many  occasions 
arise  when  more  minute  personal  supervision  is  needed  on  the 
part  of  the  teacher.  But  it  economizes  time,  it  furnishes  the 
occasion  for  a  most  effective  form  of  recapitulatory  lesson,  and 
it  awakens  interest  by  putting  the  scholars  into  a  new  attitude 
of  mind— that  of  critics.  Moreover,  it  is  far  more  effective  as  a 


Examples  of  Home  Exercises.  147 

means  of  correction  than  the  laborious  marking  of  exercise 
books  by  the  teacher  after  hours.  For  such  commentaries  as 
there  is  time  to  write  on  the  margin  are  necessarily  very  con- 
cise and  incomplete,  and  not  unfrequently  remain  unread.  It 
is  obvious  however  that  this  plan  of  mutual  correction  in  class, 
though  I  believe  it  might  be  more  largely  adopted  with 
advantage,  presupposes  that  the  exercises  are  very  definite 
in  their  character,  such  as  memory-work,  translation,  and 
arithmetic,  and  is  inapplicable  to  essays  or  general  composi- 
tion. 

Two  distinct  objects  may  be  contemplated  in  the  setting  of 
home  tasks.  The  one,  that  the  lessons  so  learned  They  should 
shall  be  preparatory,  and  give  the  materials  for  ^e^pple~ 
to-morrow's  lesson;  the  other,  that  they  should  be  rather  than 
supplementary,  and  should  have  a  bearing  on  the  prepar 
school-teaching  of  the  previous  day.  There  is  an  obvious  sense 
in  which  any  given  lesson  may  be  said  to  fulfil  both  purposes. 
Nevertheless,  your  minds  should  be  clearly  made  up  as  to  the 
purpose  which  you  think  the  more  important  of  the  two.  One 
view  on  this  point  is  well  expressed  by  Mr.  D.  R.  Fearon  in 
his  very  able  and  useful  work  on  School  Inspection.  He  says 
of  geography  and  history,  that  "matters  of  fact  should  be 
acquired  by  pupils  out  of  school,  in  readiness  for  the  lessons. 
It  is  a  deplorable  waste  of  teaching  power,  and  is  ruinous  both 
to  teacher  and  taught,  to  let  the  teacher's  time  and  vigor  be 
spent  in  telling  the  children  mere  rudimentary  facts  which  they 
can  gain  from  a  text-book.  ...  At  Marlborough  and  Rugby 
the  scholars  are  expected  to  get  up  those  mere  elements  out  of 
school,  and  the  business  of  the  master  is  one  which  presupposes 
in  his  scholars  an  acquaintance  with  such  rudiments;  it  is  to 
test,  illustrate,  amplify  and  give  interest  to  such  presupposed 
elementary  knowledge." 

Now  grant  that  the  distinction  here  made  is  a  right  one,  that 
all  the  interesting  and  intelligent  work  has  to  be  done  in 
school,  and  all  the  drudgery  out  of  it,  it  is  still  an  open  ques- 
tion whether  the  task  of  learning  names  and  facts  may  not  be 


148  Learning  and  Remembering. 

greatly  lightened  by  coming  after  rather  than  before  your 
lesson.  It  is  rather  hard  on  a  child  to  expect  him  to  deal  thus 
with  all  the  dry  bones,  until  you  come  and  clothe  them  with 
flesh  and  with  life.  I  hold  that  however  judicious  this  method 
may  be  in  some  exceptional  cases,  it  is  a  safe  general  rule  that 
out  of-door  exercises  should  be  designed  less  often  to  prepare  the 
way  for  a  coming  lesson  than  to  deepen  and  fix  the  memory  of 
a  past  lesson.  Children  learn  with  much  more  zest  and  interest 
that  of  which  they  can  see  the  bearing  and  the  use  than  that 
which  they  are  merely  told  will  have  a  bearing  and  a  use  here- 
after. 

So  if  I  were  going  to  give  a  lesson  on  the  geography  of  Swit- 
lllustrative  zerland,  I  would  not  require  the  scholars  the  day 
examples.  before  to  get  up  a  list  of  the  towns,  the  cantons, 
or  the  mountains.  But  I  would  give  a  general  oral  description, 
would  describe  by  map  or  model  its  physical  configuration, would 
try  to  awaken  some  interest  in  the  hardy,  thrifty,  liberty-loving 
people  who  lived  in  it;  and  then  at  the  end  of  the  lesson  would 
require  a  map  of  the  country  and  a  few  written  data  about  it  to 
be  prepared  as  a  home  lesson.  So  in  arithmetic,  I  would  not,  if 
to-morrow's  lesson  were  to  be  on  reducing  fractions  to  a  com- 
mon denominator,  say  to  the  scholars,  "  Now  to-night  you  are 
to  learn  by  heart  a  new  rule,  and  I  will  explain  it  and  show  you 
how  to  apply  it  to-morrow."  It  is  in  my  judgment  a  better  plan 
to  begin  by  taking  a  problem  and  working  it  out  inductively  on 
the  black-board,  to  show  as  you  go  on  the  need  of  each  process 
and  its  fitness  for  the  end  proposed;  and  then  at  the  end  of  it 
to  say:  "  What  we  have  thus  found  is  contained  in  a  rule  which 
I  want  you  to  learn  and  write  out.  Here  also  are  three  ex- 
amples to  be  worked  in  the  same  manner,  which  you  will  do  to- 
night. "  So  with  a  new  grammatical  distinction,  say  the  ablative 
absolute,  I  would  give  an  explanation,  seek  to  make  it  clear  by 
a  few  striking  examples,  and  then  give  out  as  a  home  lesson  the 
task  (1)  of  learning  the  rule  or  definition  by  heart — provided  it 
were  such  a  rule  or  definition  as  fulfilled  the  conditions  we  have 
already  laid  down — and  (2)  of  finding  out  in  a  given  page  or 


General  Conclusion  as  to  Written  Work.    149 

chapter  as  many  examples  of  the  ablative  absolute  as  pos- 
sible. 

I  am  far  from  saying  that  there  are  no  cases  in  which  it  is 
good  to  give  out  a  home  exercise  in  anticipation  of  to-morrow's 
work.  You  want  e.g.  to  have  an  ode  of  Horace  or  a  fable 
of  La  Fontaine  prepared  to-morrow.  Now  if  you  say  to  a 
child,  "  Learn  this,  and  be  prepared  to-morrow  with  a  complete 
translation  of  it;"  and  you  expect  then  to  find  him  able  to  ac- 
count for  all  the  idioms  and  allusions,  what  you  are  asking  is 
somewhat  unreasonable.  The  complete  understanding  of  the 
whole  passage  is  precisely  that  which  your  teaching  is  meant  to 
give  him.  You  must  not  throw  upon  him  so  much  respon- 
sibility. But  it  is  well  to  say:  "We  are  going  to  take  to-morrow 
the  twelfth  ode  of  the  second  book,  and  we  shall  read  it  in  class 
together.  Find  out  therefore  to-night  from  the  dictionary  all 
the  words  you  do  not  already  know."  That  is  a  perfectly  legi- 
timate requirement.  If  that  is  fulfilled,  you  have  some  material 
to  work  with.  You  read  it  line  by  line,  you  elicit  by  question- 
ing as  much  grammar  and  idiom  as  is  known,  you  supply  the 
new  facts,  the  illustration  of  new  grammatical  difficulties,  the 
allusions,  the  significance  of  the  metaphors,  the  turns  of  happy 
expression;  and  then,  when  you  have  done  this,  you  say,  "  To- 
night I  shall  expect  you  to  write  me  a  full  and  careful  translation 
of  the  whole;  and  here  are  a  dozen  words — proper  names, 
idioms,  or  allusive  phrases — which  you  will  underline,  and 
on  each  of  which  you  must  write  a  special  comment  or  ex- 
planation." 

Thus,  you  will  see,  the  home  or  evening  work  which  may 
legitimately  be  set  is  partly  preparatory  and  partly  supplement- 
ary to  your  class  teaching.  But  the  best  part  of  it  is  supplement- 
ary. And  I  have  no  doubt  that,  as  a  general  rule,  the  chief 
value  of  written  exercises  is  to  give  definiteness  to  lessons 
already  learned,  and  to  thrust  them  home  into  the  memory  rather 
than  to  break  new  ground.  Kindle  interest  and  sympathy  first. 
Let  the  scholars  see  what  you  are  aiming  at,  and  catch  some- 
thing of  your  own  interest  and  enthusiasm  in  the  pursuit  of  truth, 


150  Learning  and  Remembering. 

and  then  they  will  be  prepared  to  take  some  trouble  in  mastering 
those  details  which  they  see  to  be  needed  in  order  to  give  system 
and  clearness  to  their  knowledge.  But  he  who  expects  children 
to  master  with  any  earnestness  details  of  which  they  do  not  see 
the  purpose,  is  asking  them  to  make  bricks  without  straw,  and 
Will  certainly  be  disappointed. 


Examinations.  151 


VI.    EXAMINING. 

THE  whole  subject  of  Examinations  looms  very  large  in  the 
vision  of  the  public  and  is  apt  to  be  seen  out  of  Examina- 
its  true  proportions,  mainly  because  it  is  the  one  tions- 
portion  of  school  business  which  is  recorded  in  newspapers. 
We  shall  perhaps  arrive  at  right  notions  about  it  more  readily, 
if  we  first  consider  the  business  of  examining  as  wholly  sub- 
ordinate to  that  of  education,  and  as  part  of  the  work  of  a  school. 
If  we  are  led  to  just  conclusions  on  thispoint.we  may  then  hope 
to  consider  with  profit  the  effect  of  the  tests  and  standards  ap- 
plied to  school  work  by  outside  bodies,  by  University  Ex- 
aminers, or  in  competitions  for  the  public  service. 

First,  however,  we  may  be  fitly  reminded  that  the  art  of  put- 
ting questions  is  one  of  the  first  and  most  necessary   The  art  of 

arts  to  be  acquired  by  a  teacher.    To  know  how  to   putting 

questions, 
put  a  good  question  is  to  have  gone  a  long  way 

towards  becoming  a  skilful  and  efficient  instructor.  It  is  well 
therefore  to  ask  ourselves  what  are  the  conditions  under  which 
catechising  can  be  most  effective. 

The  object  of  putting  questions  to  a  child  whom  we  are  in- 
structing may  be — 

(1)  To  find  out  what  he  knows,  by  way  of  preparing  him 
for  some  further  instruction. 

(2)  To  discover  his  misconceptions  and  difficulties. 

(3)  To  secure  the  activity  of  his  mind  and  his  co-operation 
while  you  are  in  the  act  of  teaching  him. 

(4)  To  test  the  result  and  outcome  of  what  you  have  taught. 
So  that  interrogation  is  not  only  a  means  of  discovering  what 

is  known,  it  is  itself  a  prime  instrument  in  imparting  knowl- 


152  Examining. 

edge.  In  the  employment  of  all  our  faculties,  we  want  not 
only  the  dynamic  power,  but  the  guiding  sensation  to  tell  us 
what  we  are  doing.  If  a  man  is  deaf,  he  soon  becomes  dumb. 
Unless  he  can  hear  himself,  he  ceases  to  know  how  to  talk,  and 
he  soon  leaves  off  caring  to  talk.  So  as  we  go  on  giving  a  les- 
son, we  are  completely  in  the  dark,  unless  by  means  of  constant 
questioning  we  keep  ourselves  en  rapport  with  our  pupil,  and 
know  exactly  whether  and  how  far  he  is  following  us. 

Hence  the  first  object  of  questioning  is  to  awaken  curi- 
Theques-  osity,  to  conduct  the  learner,  so  to  speak,  to  the 
tions  of  boundaries  of  his  previous  knowledge,  and  thus 

to  put  his  mind  into  the  right  attitude  for  ex- 
tending those  boundaries  by  learning  something  new.  And 
we  all  know  that  the  one  person  who  is  generally  reputed  to  be 
the  master  of  this  art,  and  who  has  in  fact  given  his  name  to 
one  particular  form  of  catechising,  was  Socrates.  Now  what 
is  the  Socratic  method  of  questioning?  Socrates  was,  as  you 
know,  a  philosopher  who  lived  in  the  golden  age  of  Greece, 
when  intellectual  activity  hi  Athens  was  at  its  highest  point; 
and  the  function  he  assigned  to  himself  was  a  very  unique  one. 
He  saw  around  him  a  people  who  thirsted  for  knowledge,  and 
were  very  fond  of  speculation.  He  saw  also  that  there  was  a 
large  class  of  men,  Sophists,  Rhetoricians,  and  others,  who 
sought  to  satisfy  this  appetite.  And  what  struck  him  most 
forcibly  was  the  haste  with  which  people  generalized  about 
things  which  they  had  imperfectly  examined,  the  heedlessness 
with  which  they  used  certain  words  before  fixing  their  mean- 
ing, and  generally  the  need  of  more  self-examination  and  self- 
knowledge.  Hence  it  was  the  chief  purpose  of  the  dialogues 
which  have  been  handed  down  to  us  by  his  affectionate 
disciples  Xenophon  and  Plato,  to  clear  men's  minds  of  illusions, 
and  of  the  impediments  to  learning;  and  rather  to  put  them 
into  the  best  attitude  for  receiving  knowledge  and  for  making 
a  right  use  of  it,  than  to  give  to  them  definite  dogmas,  or 
authoritative  statements  of  truth.  I  should  have  been  well 
content  if  the  plan  of  these  lectures  had  allowed  of  our  devot- 


A  Socratic  Dialogue.  153 

ing  one  of  our  meetings  exclusively  to  a  consideration  of  his 
remarkable  career,  and  to  the  effect  of  his  method  of  teaching 
in  awakening  inquiry,  and  in  purging  and  disciplining  the 
faculties  of  his  hearers.  But  it  must  suffice  if  I  say  even  to 
those  of  you  who  do  not  read  Greek  that  by  devoting  a  little 
time  to  the  perusal  of  some  of  the  dialogues  as  given  by 
Whewell  or  Jowett  in  their  editions  of  Plato,  or  to  a  translation 
of  the  Memorabilia  of  Xenophon,  or  to  Mr.  Grote's  or  Professor 
Maurice's  account  of  the  teaching  of  Socrates  and  the  Sophists 
of  his  day,  you  will  acquire  some  very  valuable  hints.  Mean- 
while I  should  like  to  give  you  one  short  and  free  translation 
of  a  little  dialogue  from  Xenophon  which  is  characteristic  of 
his  method. 

There  was  a  young  man  named  Euthydemus  in  whom  he  took  much 
interest,  and  who  was  fired  with  a  very  strong  ambition  to    ^  Socratic 
distinguish  himself  as  a  thinker  and  a  philosopher.    So    dialogue. 
Socrates  placed  himself  in  his  way  and  said: 

"  They  say,  my  Euthydemus,  that  you  have  collected  many  of  the 
writings  of  those  men  whom  we  call  wise:  Is  it  so?" 

"Most  undoubtedly  it  is,  and  I  shall  not  cease  to  collect  them,  for  I 
value  them  very  highly.  I  covet  knowledge  most  of  all." 

"  What  sort  of  knowledge  do  you  desire  most  ?"  He  then  enumerates 
one  after  another  the  principal  professions — that  of  a  physician,  an 
architect,  a  geometrician,  and  receives  negative  answers  in  each  case. 

"  Perhaps  then  you  desire  that  kind  of  knowledge  which  makes  the 
able  statesman  and  the  good  economist,  which  qualifies  for  command 
and  renders  a  man  useful  to  himself  and  others." 

"  That  indeed  is  what  I  sigh  for  and  am  in  search  of,"  replied  Euthy- 
demus with  no  small  emotion. 

Socrates  commends  this  resolve,  and  by  a  few  more  questions  elicits 
from  his  catechumen  the  declaration  that  what  men  want  is  a  stronger 
sense  of  justice,  and  that  he  hopes  to  be  useful  in  making  them  under- 
stand their  duties  better.  "  Assuredly,"  he  says  in  reply  to  Socrates's 
request  for  a  definition  of  justice,  "  there  can  be  no  practical  difficulty 
in  pointing  out  what  is  just  and  what  is  unjust,  in  actions  about  which 
we  are  conversant  daily." 

"Suppose  then,"  says  Socrates,  "  we  draw  a  line  and  set  down  an 
Alpha  here  and  an  Omega  there,  and  arrange  under  these  two  heads  the 
things  that  belong  to  justice  and  injustice  respectively." 

"  You  may  do  so,  if  you  think  there  will  be  any  use  in  such  a  method." 

"  Now"  (having  done  this)  "  Is  there  any  such  a  thing  as  lying?" 


154  Examining. 


"  Most  certainly." 

"And  on  which  side  shall  we  place  it?" 

"Under  Omega,  the  side  of  injustice  certainly." 

"  Do  mankind  ever  deceive  each  other?" 

"  Frequently." 

"  And  where  shall  we  place  this  deceit?" 

"  On  the  same  side  of  the  line." 

"  Selling  people  into  slavery  who  were  born  free?" 

"  Still  the  same  certainly." 

"But  suppose  one  whom  you  have  elected  to  command  your  armies 
should  take  a  city  belonging  to  your  enemies,  and  sell  its  inhabitants 
for  slaves.  Shall  we  say  he  acts  unjustly?" 

"  By  no  means." 

"  May  we  say  he  acts  justly?" 

"We  may." 

"And  what  if  while  he  is  carrying  on  the  var  he  deceiveth  the 
enemy?" 

"  He  will  do  right  by  so  doing." 

"  May  he  not  likewise,  when  he  ravages  their  country,  carry  off  their 
corn  and  their  cattle  without  being  guilty  of  injustice." 

"  No  doubt,  Socrates,  and  when  I  seemed  to  say  otherwise  I  thought 
you  confined  what  was  spoken  to  our  friends  only." 

"  So  then,  what  we  have  hitherto  placed  under  the  letter  Omega  may 
be  carried  over  and  arranged  under  Alpha." 

"It  may." 

"  But  will  it  not  be  necessary  to  make  a  further  distinction,  Euthyde- 
mus,  and  say  that  to  behave  in  such  a  manner  to  our  enemies  is  just, 
and  to  our  friends  unjust,  because  to  these  last  the  utmost  simplicity 
and  candor  is  due?" 

"  You  are  in  the  right,  Socrates." 

"  But  how,  if  this  general,  on  seeing  the  courage  of  his  troops  begin  to 
fail,  should  make  them  believe  fresh  succors  at  hand,  and  by  this 
means  remove  their  fears;  to  which  side  should  we  assign  this  false- 
hood?" 

"  I  suppose  to  justice. 

"  Or,  if  a  child  refuseth  the  physic  he  stands  in  need  of,  and  the  father 
deceiveth  him  under  the  appearance  of  food,  where  shall  we  place  this 
deceit,  Euthydemus?" 

"With  the  same,  I  imagine." 

"  And,  suppose  a  man  in  the  height  of  despair  should  attempt  to  kill 
himself,  and  his  friend  should  come  and  force  away  his  sword,  under 
what  head  are  we  to  place  this  act  of  violence?" 

"  I  should  think  under  the  same  head  as  the  former.  It  is  clearly  not 
wrong." 


Socratic   Questioning.  155 

"  But  take  care,  Euthydemus,  since  it  seemeth  from  your  answers  that 
we  ought  not  always  to  treat  our  friends  with  candor  and  perfect  truth- 
fulness, which  yet  we  had  before  agreed  should  be  done." 

"It  is  plain  we  ought  not,  and  I  retract  my  former  opinion,  if  it  is  al- 
lowable for  me  to  do  so." 

"  Most  assuredly,  for  it  is  far  better  to  change  our  opinion  than  to  per- 
sist in  a  wrong  one.  However,  that  we  may  pass  over  nothing  without 
duly  examining  i»,  which  of  the  two,  Euthydemus,  appears  to  you  the 
more  unjust,  he  who  deceives  his  friend  willingly,  or  he  who  does  it 
without  having  any  such  design?" 

"  By  Jove,  Socrates,  I  am  not  certain  what  I  should  answer  or  what  I 
should  think,  for  you  have  given  such  a  turn  to  all  I  have  said  as  to 
make  it  appear  very  different  from  what  I  thought  it.  I  fancied  I  was 
no  stranger  to  philosophy,  but  now  it  seems  to  me  more  difficult,  and 
my  own  knowledge  of  it  less  than  I  supposed." 

Now,  by  some  such  method,  however  humbling,  it  was  Soc- 
rates's  desire  to  bring  the  mind  of  a  disciple  into  Socratic 
a  fit  state  for  further  investigation.  To  show  him  questioning, 
that  there  were  latent  difficulties  in  many  things  which  seemed 
very  simple;  that  plausible  and  well- sounding  general  propo- 
sitions admitted  of  exceptions  and  qualifications  which  were 
often  unsuspected;  and  that  till  these  things  had  been  recog- 
nized and  carefully  examined,  it  was  premature  to  dogmatize 
about  them — all  this  appeared  to  him  a  needful  part  of  intel- 
lectual discipline.  And  if,  on  reading  what  are  called  the  "  dia- 
logues of  search,"  you  observe  that  they  end  in  nothing  but 
mere  negative  conclusions,  and  bring  you  to  no  definite  state- 
ment of  truth;  you  may  bear  in  mind  that  though  this  result 
may  seem  disappointing,  and  though  it  undoubtedly  disap- 
pointed his  disciples  very  often,  it  would  not  have  disappointed 
hun.  For  if  he  could  clear  away  illusions,  and  make  people 
see  the  difference  between  what  they  knew  and  what  they  did 
not  know,  and  so  put  them  into  a  better  condition  for  arriving 
at  conclusions  for  themselves,  he  thought  he  had  done  them  a 
greater  intellectual  service  than  if  he  had  provided  them  with 
any  ready-made  conclusions,  however  valuable. 

And,  in  like  manner,  I  think  we  shall  do  wisely  as  teachers 
if  we  seek  before  giving  a  new  lesson  to  ascertain  by  means  of 


156  Examining. 

questions  what  previous  knowledge  exists,  and  what  miscon- 
A  li  ti  n  ceptions  or  vagueness  are  in  the  minds  of  our 
of  method  to  pupils  on  the  subject  we  want  to  explain.  Doing 
ise'  this  serves  two  purposes.  It  reveals  to  you  the 
measure  of  the  deficiency  you  have  to  supply,  and  it  awakens 
the  sympathy  and  interest  of  the  pupil  by  showing  him  what 
he  has  to  learn. 

Supposing  this  preliminary  work  done,  you  have  next  to  con- 
Tests  of  a  sider  how  questions  may  be  most  effectually  used 
tion.  in  the  course  of  lessons  and  at  the  end  of  them. 

The  first  requisite  of  a  question  is  that  it  should  be  in  perfect- 

ly  clear,  simple  language,  the  meaning  of  which 

admits  of  no  mistake.    It  should  be  expressed  in 

as  few  words  as  possible.     I  heard  a  man  questioning  a  class 

the  other  day  in  physical  geography.     He  said: 

"  Where  do  you  expect  to  find  lakes?  For  instance,  you  know 
the  difference  between  a  chain  of  mountains  and  a  group,  don't 
you.  Well,  you  know  the  water  comes  down  the  side  of  a 
mountain,  and  must  go  somewhere.  What  is  a  lake  ?" 

Here  in  this  question  there  are  four  sentences,  and  two  totally 
different  questions.  The  questioner  knew  what  he  wanted,  but 
while  he  was  speaking,  it  dawned  upon  him  that  he  might  make 
it  clearer,  so  he  interposed  a  little  explanation,  and  ended  by 
putting  a  different  question  from  that  which  he  gave  at  first. 
It  was  amusing  to  see  the  puzzled  and  bewildered  look  of  the 
children  as  they  listened  to  this,  and  to  many  other  of  the  like 
clumsy  and  inartistic  questions,  fenced  round  by  qualifications 
and  afterthoughts,  until  it  was  very  hard  for  them  to  know 
what  was  really  expected  of  them.  In  this  particular  case  he 
had  got  hold  of  a  very  true  notion.  He  should  first  have  shown 
a  drawing  or  a  little  model  of  a  chain  of  mountains,  and  then 
have  arked  them  to  tell  him  what  became  of  the  streams  that 
rolled  down  into  a  plain.  Soon  he  would  have  elicited  a  good 
general  notion  of  the  course  of  rivers  as  determined  by  a  water- 
shed. Then  he  should  have  asked  what  would  happen  if  the 
mountains  were  not  in  a  chain  but  in  a  group,  so  that  when  the 


Characteristics  of  a  Good  Question.        157 

water  rolled  down  one  side  it  could  not  get  away,  but  was 
stopped  by  another  mountain.  "  What  becomes  of  the  water?" 
It  must  stop  in  the  valleys.  "  And  when  water  remains  in  a 
valley,  what  do  we  call  it?"  A  lake.  "Now  tell  me  what  a 
lake  is."  "  How  do  you  expect  to  find  the  mountains  arranged 
in  the  lake  country.  In  a  group  or  in  a  range?  Why?"  Each 
question,  you  see,  ought  to  be  one,  and  indivisible.  There 
should  be  no  ambiguity  about  the  sort  of  answer  it  requires. 
Let  me  warn  you  also  to  avoid  the  habit  of  surrounding  your 

questions  with  little  expletives  and  circumlocu- 

2  ,,,,  „„     ,,-rrr^-  i,     e  2.  Terseness. 

tions.        Can  any  one  tell  me?         Which  of  you 

knows?"  "  Will  those  hold  up  their  hands  who  can  answer?" 
"Well  now,  I  want  some  child  to  answer  this."  Strip  your 
question,  as  a  rule,  of  all  such  verbiage  and  periphrase,  and  say 
plainly  what  you  want.  "  Which  are  the  verbs  in  that  sen- 
tence?" "Why  is  that  noun  in  the  ablative  case?"  "How 
many  feet  are  in  a  mile?"  Practise  yourself  in  economizing 
your  words,  and  reducing  all  such  questions  to  their  simplest 
forms. 

Generally  too,  all  wide,  vague  inquiries  should  be  avoided. 
"What  do  you  think  of  that?"  "What  sort  of 
person  was  Henry  VIII.  ?"  "  Describe  what  hap- 
pened in  the  civil  war."  "  What  are  the  uses  of  iron?"  I  heard 
a  teacher  giving  a  lesson  on  the  atmosphere.  He  described  a 
man  drowning,  and  brought  out  that  he  died  for  want  of  air. 
"  Now,"  said  he  in  triumph,  "  what  is  the  thought  that  occurs 
to  our  minds?"  Well,  I  am  sure  I  could  not  have  answered 
that  question;  a  good  many  thoughts  occurred  to  my  mind,  but 
as  I  had  no  clear  knowledge  of  the  particular  thought  which 
was  in  his,  and  which  he  expected  from  his  class,  I  should  cer- 
tainly have  been  silent, — and  so  were  his  pupils.  Questions  of 
this  sort,  which  admit  of  a  good  many  answers,  or  of  a  long 
and  comprehensive  answer,  are  perfectly  legitimate  in  a  written 
examination,  because  then  there  is  leisure  to  answer  them  fully. 
But  they  are  unsuited  to  oral  questioning,  which  should  always 
be  brisk  and  pointed,  and  should  elicit  one  fact  at  a  time. 


158  Examining. 

Need  I  warn  you  against  the  use  of  that  style  of  questions  in 
4.  Not  re-  which  the  whole  of  what  has  to  be  said  is  said  by 

quiring  mere    the  teacher,  and  the  scholar  is  simply  called  on  to 
affirmative 

or  negative      assent.    Here  is  an  extract  from  a  nice  little  cate- 
chism on  "good  manners,"  published  in  Scotland 
for  the  use  of  Board  Schools: 

"  Q. — Is  Tin  truthfulness  a  very  common  vice  in  children? 

A.— Yes. 

Q.— Are  children  much  tempted  to  the  commission  of  it? 

A.— Yes. 

Q. — Is  untruthfulness  or  lying  a  low  and  degrading  vice,  repugnant 
to  conscience,  punishable  by  law,  and  universally  abhorred  and  con- 
demned? 

A.— Yes. 

Q.— And  yet  you  say  children  are  guilty  of  it,  and  greatly  tempted 
to  its  commission? 

A.— Yes. 

Q. — Are  there  instances  recorded  in  Scripture  of  this  sin  being  in- 
stantly visited  by  the  punishment  of  death? 

A.— Yes. 

Q.— Ought  any  one  to  respect,  or  esteem,  a  known  liar? 

A.— No. 

Q.— Would  you  willingly  associate  with,  or  make  a  companion  of, 
any  boy  or  girl  known  to  be  a  liar? 

A.— No." 

I  need  not  say  that  there  is  no  questioning  here,  notwithstand- 
ing the  catechetical  form  of  the  book  from  which  I  take  it. 
Little  children  say  "yes"  and  "no"  quite  mechanically  as  they 
listen  to  these  admirable  sentiments.  They  know  by  the  very 
tones  of  your  voice  what  answer  you  expect;  and  they  can  give 
it  without  in  the  least  degree  appropriating  the  idea  conveyed  by 
your  questions.  You  may  easily  test  this  for  yourself;  and  for 
the  present,  take  my  word  for  it  that  the  power  to  give  a  mere 
affirmative  or  negative  answer  to  your  questions  may  coexist 
with  complete  ignorance  of  the  whole  subject  you  are  professing 
to  teach. 

And  in  a  less  degree,  I  would  have  you  distrust  all  answers 
which  consist  of  single  words.  You  explain  by  a  diagram 


Simplicity  and  Directness.  159 

or  otherwise  to  little  children,  what  the  line  is  which  passes 
through  the  centre,  and  you  say  that  it  is  called   5  ^or  capa. 

a  diameter.      Some  teachers   would    follow  up   ble  of  being 

1     answered 
this    explanation  by  saying,  "What  do  we  call    in  single 

this  line?"  A  diameter.  "What  is  it?"  A  diam-  words-  . 
eter.  Now  the  mere  echo  of  the  word  may  readily  be  given 
you  in  this  way  if  you  repeat  the  question  a  dozen  times, 
and  given  by  children  who  do  not  know  what  it  means.  The 
word  diameter  is  part  of  a  sentence.  "  The  line  which  passes 
through  the  centre  of  a  circle  or  of  a  sphere  is  called  a  diame- 
ter." And  unless  the  children  have  appropriated  this  whole 
sentence  they  have  learned  nothing.  So  the  moment  you  have 
elicited  the  word  in  reply  to  one  question,  put  a  second  question 
in  another  form,  "What  is  a  diameter?"  This  will  make  them 
give  you  the  rest  of  the  sentence.  And  then  afterwards, ' '  Now 
what  have  we  learned?"  "  That  a  diameter  is,  etc."  Let  us  re- 
member that  every  answer  we  get  to  an  ordinary  question  is  a 
fragment  of  a  sentence;  that  it  is  only  the  sentence,  and  not  the 
single  word  which  conveys  any  meaning;  and  that  the  ques- 
tioner who  understands  his  art  turns  his  question  round  until 
he  gets  from  his  scholars  successively  the  other  parts  of  the 
sentence  and  finally  the  whole.  Indeed  one  of  the  best  tests  of 
a  good  question  is  the  relation  between  the  number  of  words 
employed  by  the  teacher  and  the  pupil  respectively.  If  the 
teacher  does  all  the  talking,  and  the  pupil  only  responds  with 
single  words  the  questioning  is  bad.  The  great  object  should 
be  with  the  minimum  of  your  own  words  to  draw  out  the  maxi- 
mum of  words  and  of  thought  from  him. 

It  will  be  obvious  to  you  that  questions  should  not  be  put 
you  could  not  answer  yourself,  or  to  which  you   g  Nor  those 

have  no  reasonable  right  to  expect  an  answer;  nor  to  which  it  te 

unreasonable 
should  they  be  repeated  to  those  who  cannot  re-   to  expect  an 

ply.    The  Socratic  elencfms  is  a  mischievous  ex-   ' 
pedient,  if  it  is  so  used  as  to  worry  children  for  knowledge 
which  they  do  not  possess.    For  in  this  case  you  encourage  the 
habit  of  guessing,  which  is  clearly  a  bad  habit.    So  all  questions 


160  Examining. 

ending  in  the  word  "What,"  and  a  large  number  of  elliptical 
questions,  in  which  the  teacher  makes  an  assertion,  and  then 
stops  for  the  scholar  to  fill  up  the  last  word,  are  open  to  the 
same  criticism.  And  as  to  the  practice  of  suggesting  the  first 
syllable  of  a  word  to  some  one  who  cannot  recollect  it,  it  is  one 
which  would  never  be  adopted  at  all  by  a  skilled  questioner. 
In  putting  a  series  of  questions,  whether  in  the  actual  course 

„  ^    x,    -^      of  teaching,  or  for  purposes  of  recapitulation  and 
7.  Continuity.  .        *"  \  . 

examination,  great  care  should  be  taken  to  pre- 
serve continuity  and  order.  Each  question  should  grow  out  of 
the  last  answer,  or  be  in  some  way  logically  connected  with  it. 
Consider  the  manner  in  which  lawyers  who  practise  at  the  bar 
employ  the  art  of  questioning.  You  read  in  the  newspapers  the 
evidence  given  at  a  trial,  and  are  struck  with  the  clearness  and 
coherence  of  the  story,  especially  when  you  know  that  it  was 
given  by  an  ignorant  witness  under  all  the  bewildering  excite- 
ment of  publicity.  But  in  fact,  no  such  story  as  you  read  has 
been  narrated.  The  lawyer  has  elicited  fact  after  fact  by  a 
series  of  questions,  and  the  reporter  has  given  you  the  answers 
only.  And  the  method  and  clearness,  the  absence  of  all  irrele- 
vant matter  which  strike  you  so  much  in  the  evidence,  are  due 
not  to  the  narrative  powers  of  the  witness,  but  to  the  skill  of  the 
barrister  who  knew  exactly  what  he  wanted,  and  in  what  order 
the  facts  should  be  evolved.  Apply  this  test  to  your  own  work 
sometimes.  Ask  yourself  when  your  scholars  close  their  books 
and  you  question  them  on  a  reading  lesson,  how  the  series  of 
answers  would  look  if  taken  down  by  an  unseen  reporter,  and 
printed  out  in  full.  Would  they  be  orderly,  would  they  be 
readable?  Would  they  cover  the  whole  ground,  and  make  a 
complete  summary  of  what  has  been  learned?  Unless  your 
questions  would  stand  this  test,  you  have  yet  something  to  learn 
of  the  teacher's  craft. 

And  with  regard  to  the  answers  which  either  you  fail  to  get, 

or  which  when  you  get,  you  find  to  be  wholly 

wrong,  or  partly  wrong  and  partly  right,  a  word 

or  two  must  be  said.    If  the  answering  is  bad,  either  you  have 


Good  and  Bad  Answers.  161 


been  asking  for  what  was  not  known,  or  for  what  had  been  in- 
sufficiently explained,  in  which  case  you  should  go  back  and 
teach  the  subject  again.  Or  there  may  be  knowledge  but  no 
disposition  to  answer,  in  which  case  your  discipline  is  bad,  and 
you  must  fall  back  upon  some  way  of  recovering  it.  All  ran- 
dom and  foolish  answering  is  rudeness,  and  should  be  dealt 
with  as  such.  But  the  wrong  answers  which  come  from 
scholars  who  want  to  be  right  generally  require  to  be  met  with 
a  question  differently  shaped.  Do  not  leap  to  the  conclusion 
that  because  your  question  is  not  answered,  nothing  is  known. 
Take  your  question  back,  alter  its  shape,  or  put  a  simpler  one. 
Perhaps  after  all,  the  thing  you  want  to  get  at  is  known,  but 
the  difficulty  is  in  the  mere  expression  of  it.  You  have  been 
giving  a  lesson  on  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere,  and  you  say, 
"  Why  is  boiling  water  not  so  hot  on  the  top  of  a  mountain  as 
in  a  valley?"  Now  if  the  class  is  silent,  it  may  be  simply  be- 
cause this  is  a  complex  question,  and  a  good  deal  might  be  said 
in-  answering  it;  and  your  pupil,  though  knowing  something 
about  it,  does  not  know  exactly  where  to  begin.  So  you  keep 
your  question  in  mind,  but  for  the  moment  withdraw  it.  You 
then  ask  in  succession,  "What  happens  when  water  begins  to 
boil?  What  the  bubbling  means?  What  would  have  pre- 
vented the  bubbling  from  beginning  so  soon?  Greater  pressure 
of  air.  What  would  have  caused  the  bubbling  to  begin  earlier? 
Less  pressure.  Whether  the  water  is  capable  of  receiving  more 
heat  after  it  begins  to  bubble?"  "  What  is  the  state  of  the  air 
up  a  mountain  as  compared  with  that  below?"  and  so  forth; 
and  to  all  of  these  detailed  questions  you  will  probably  get 
answers.  And  having  got  them,  it  may  be  well  then  to  go  back 
and  to  say,  "  I  asked  you  at  first  a  hard  question  including  all 
these  particulars.  Which  of  you  can  now  give  me  a  complete 
answer  to'  that  first  question?"  Do  not  be  impatient,  and  hasten 
to  answer  your  own  questions,  which  of  course  is  often  the 
easiest  thing  to  do.  It  is  in  the  very  act  of  drawing  out  the 
knowledge  and  thought  of  the  scholars,  and  piecing  it  together, 
that  you  are  bringing  their  intelligence  into  discipline.  You 
11 


162  Examining. 

have  to  show  them  that  much  of  what  you  want  them  to  know 
they  may  find  in  themselves,  and  that  you  can  help  them  to  find 
it.  And  you  can  only  do  this  by  cultivating  very  great  variety 
in  the  form  in  which  you  put  your  questions,  and  by  practising 
?he  art  of  resolving  all  complex  questions  which  prove  too  dif- 
ficult into  a  series  of  simple  ones.  When  a  good  teacher  re- 
ceives a  clumsy  answer,  which  is  partly  wrong  and  partly  right, 
or  which  though  right  in  substance  is  wrong  in  form,  he  does 
not  reject  it;  but  either  he  accepts  it  as  partially  true  and  stops, 
and  after  obtaining  a  better  answer  from  another  scholar,  goes 
back,  and  asks  the  first  to  amend  his  answer:  or  else  he  sees 
that  the  full  investigation  of  the  difficulty  thus  revealed  would 
carry  him  too  far  from  the  main  purpose  of  the  lesson  and  spoil 
its  unity.  In  this  case  he  reserves  the  point,  so  to  speak,  says 
it  wants  further  examination,  and  promises  either  at  the  end  of 
the  lesson,  or  very  soon  in  a  new  one,  to  go  into  the  matter  and 
clear  the  difficulty  away.  Never  treat  an  honest  dilemma  or 
confusion  as  a  fault,  but  always  as  something  which  you  would 
like  to  solve,  and  in  the  solving  of  which  you  mean  to  ask  for 
the  pupil's  co-operation. 

There  are  those  who  in  questioning,  especially  when  the  class 
Collective  ^  ^S6'  are  content  to  receive  replies  from  such 
answering  scholars  as,  by  holding  up  their  hands  or  otherwise, 
jeep  ive.  volunteer  to  answer.  This  is  of  course  easy,  but 
it  is  very  unsatisfactory.  Every  scholar  should  know  that  he 
is  liable  to  receive  a  question,  and  that  the  more  careless  and 
indifferent  he  seems,  the  more  liable  he  will  be  to  be  chal- 
lenged. Fasten  your  eye  on  the  worst  scholar  in  your  class 
and  be  sure  to  carry  him  with  you;  and  measure  your  progress 
by  what  you  can  do  with  him.  The  eagerness  of  a  teacher 
who  is  so  impatient  of  delay  that  he  welcomes  any  answer  he 
can  get,  and  pushes  on  at  once  is  somewhat  ensnaring  to  him. 
We  must  avoid  mistaking  the  readiness  of  a  few  clever  chil- 
dren, who  are  prominent  in  answering,  for  the  intellectual 
movement  of  the  whole  class.  If  you  find  yourself  in  the  least 
danger  of  thus  mistaking  a  part  for  the  whole,  put  your  ques- 


The  Inquisitive  Spirit.  163 

tions  to  the  scholars  in  turns  now  and  then.  It  may  perhaps 
help  to  remove  an  illusion.  Or  notice  the  scholars  who  fail 
oftenest,  and  bring  them  into  the  desk  nearest  you,  and  take 
care  that  they  have  twice  as  many  questions  as  any  one  else. 

The  art  of  putting  a  good  question  is  itself  a  mental  exercise 
of  some  value,  and  implies  some  knowledge  of  Mutual 
the  subject  in  hand.  You  are  conscious  of  this  questioning, 
when  you  yourselves  interrogate  your  class.  Bear  this  in 
mind,  therefore,  in  its  application  to  the  scholars.  Let  them 
occasionally  change  their  attitude  of  mind  from  that  of  re- 
ceivers and  respondents,  to  that  of  inquirers.  Remember 
Bacon's  aphorism,  Prudens  qumtio,  dimidium  sciential.  You 
are  half-way  to  the  knowledge  of  a  thing,  when  you  can  put  a 
sensible  question  upon  it.  So  I  have  sometimes  heard  a  teacher 
towards  the  end  of  a  lesson  appeal  to  his  pupils,  and  say  to 
them  one  by  one,  "  Put  a  question  to  the  class  on  what  we  have 
learned!"  To  do  this,  a  boy  must  turn  the  subject  round  in 
his  mind  a  little  and  look  at  it  in  a  new  light.  The  knowledge 
that  he  is  likely  to  be  challenged  to  do  it  will  make  him  listen 
to  the  lesson  more  carefully,  and  prepare  himself  with  suitable 
questions;  and  whether  he  knows  the  answer  or  not,  there  is  a 
clear  gain  in  such  an  effort.  The  best  teachers  always  encour- 
age their  scholars  to  ask  questions.  The  old  discipline  in  the 
Mediaeval  Universities  of  posers  and  disputations,  in  which  one 
student  proposed  a  thesis  or  a  question,  and  another  had  to  an- 
swer it,  was  not  a  bad  instrument  for  sharpening  the  wits.  In 
a  modified  way,  it  may  be  well  to  keep  this  in  view,  and  to  set 
scholars  occasionally  to  question  one  another. 

Mr.  Bain  has  said,  "  Much  of  the  curiosity  of  children  is  a 
spurious  article.     Frequently  it  is  a  mere  display   The  inquisi- 
of  egotism,  the  delight  in  giving  trouble,  in  being   tive  sP1™1- 
pandered  to  and  served.      Questions  are  put,   not  from  the 
desire  of   rational  information,  but  for  the  love  of  excite- 
ment."   And  later  on,  he  says  that  "The  so-called  curiosity 
of  children  is  chiefly  valuable  as  yielding  ludicrous  situations 
for  our  comic  literature."    We  have  thus,  on  very  high  au- 


164  Examining. 

thority,  a  reproof  for  childish  inquisitiveness,  and  an  apology 
for  ignorant  nurses,  and  for  faineants  and  unsympathetic 
teachers  in  the  use  of  the  familiar  formula,  "  Don't  be  tiresome 
and  don't  ask  questions."  One  might  have  hoped  that  this 
was  one  of  the  modes  of  treating  children  which  was  becoming 
obsolete,  and  that  the  teachers  of  the  future  would  at  least  try 
to  regard  the  curious  and  inquiring  spirit  among  children,  as 
one  of  the  most  hopeful  of  signs;  one  of  the  principal  things  to 
be  encouraged  in  early  training;  one  of  their  surest  allies  in  the 
later  development  of  thought.  "  For  Curiosity,"  Archbishop 
Whately  says,  "is  the  parent  of  attention,  and  a  teacher  has 
no  more  right  to  expect  success  in  teaching  those  who  have  no 
curiosity  to  learn  than  a  husbandman  has  who  sows  a  field 
without  ploughing  it."  I  doubt  whether  any  one  of  us  can 
establish  for  himself  a  satisfactory  code  of  rules,  or  a  workable 
theory  of  discipline,  until  he  shall  at  least  have  made  up  his 
mind  on  the  point  thus  raised.  Is  the  childish  curiosity  a  thing 
to  be  repressed  as  an  impertinence  and  a  nuisance,  or  to  be  en- 
couraged and  welcomed  as  the  teacher's  best  auxiliary?  Is  the 
habit  of  putting  questions  on  what  a  child  does  not  understand 
— of  saying  when  a  hard  word  occurs — "If  you  please  will 
you  explain  that  to  me,  I  want  to  know" — a  good  habit  or  a 
bad  one?  For  my  part,  although  I  am  quite  aware  that  as  a 
matter  of  discipline,  mere  impudence  and  forwardness — the 
putting  of  questions  for  the  sake  of  giving  trouble  to  teachers — 
ought  to  be  sternly  discountenanced  when  they  occur,  it  seems 
to  me  nevertheless  true  that  for  every  time  in  which  they  occur, 
there  are  ten  times  in  which  the  question  of  a  child  evinces  real 
mental  activity  and  a  desire  to  know. 

It  seems  right  to  revert  for  a  moment  to  the  printed  ques- 
tions, such  as  are  often  found  appended  to  school- 
Catechisms.  .   _       .  .  „, 

books;  and  to  the  use  of  Catechisms.  The  an- 
swers when  learned  by  heart  are  open  to  the  objections  I  have 
already  urged:  (1)  That  the  language  in  which  they  are  ex- 
pressed has  seldom  or  never  any  special  value  of  its  own  to 
justify  its  being  committed  to  memory  at  all;  and  (2)  That 


Catechisms.  165 


even  when  learned  by  heart  and  remembered  the  sentences  are 
generally  incomplete;  for  since  part  of  the  sentence  lies  in  the 
question  which  is  not  learned  by  heart;  the  other  part  or  the 
answer  is  a  mere  fragment,  and  is  of  little  or  no  use;  and  (3) 
They  assume  that  every  question  admits  of  but  one  form  of 
answer;  which  is  scarcely  true  of  one  question  in  a  hundred. 
But  the  worst  effect  of  the  use  of  printed  catechisms  is  that  pro- 
duced upon  the  teacher.  So  far  from  encouraging  or  helping 
him  in  the  practice  of  questioning,  the  use  of  the  book  has 
precisely  the  opposite  effect.  I  wish  to  speak  with  all  respect 
of  catechisms,  some  of  which  such  as  the  Church  Catechism 
and  the  Shorter  Catechism  of  the  General  Assembly  are  con- 
nected with  the  history  of  religion  in  this  country,  in  a  way 
which  entitles  them,  at  least  so  far  as  their  substance  is  con- 
cerned, to  veneration.  Moreover  for  parents  and  for  clergy- 
men, and  others  who  are  not  teachers  by  profession,  it  may 
often  be  useful  to  see  what  is  the  sort  of  knowledge  which 
should  be  imparted  to  children,  and  in  what  order  the  parts  of 
it  should  be  arranged.  But  nobody  who  has  the  most  elemen- 
tary knowledge  of  the  teacher's  art  would  ever  degrade  himself 
by  using  a  catechism,  and  causing  the  answers  to  be  learned 
by  heart.  I  remember  with  what  pious  care  I  was  taught  the 
Church  Catechism  in  childhood,  and  how  many  hundred  times 
I  have  recited  that  formulary.  I  remember  too  that  there  was 
one  question  "  What  did  your  godfathers  and  godmothers  then 
for  you?"  in  which  I  always  thought  that  then  was  a  verb. 
But  I  never  asked.  It  seemed,  though  a  strange  expression,  to 
fit  in  well  with  the  generally  quaint  and  antiquated  character 
of  the  rest.  And  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  this  question 
was  never  once  turned  round,  and  translated  into  a  form  in 
which  it  was  more  intelligible  to  me.  Even  the  worst  of  my 
teachers  would,  if  the  responsibility  of  framing  the  question 
had  been  left  to  him,  have  been  compelled  to  ask  such  a  ques- 
tion as  I  could  understand.  But  the  fact  that  the  authorized 
question  was  printed  in  a  book  released  him  from  this  respon- 
sibility. He  regarded  the  Church's  words  when  learned  by 


166  Exam  ining. 

heart  as  a  sort  of  charm,  possessing  a  value  quite  independent 
of  any  meaning  they  might  actually  convey;  and  the  result  was 
that  though  the  lesson  was  called  a  catechism,  there  was  no 
true  catechising,  and  that  instead  of  an  exercise  which  should 
appeal  to  the  intelligence  and  the  conscience,  there  was  a  barren 
ceremony,  which  made  no  impression  on  either.  And  what  is 
true  of  religion  is  true  of  all  other  subjects.  I  never  once  found 
in  examining  a  school,  that  a  subject — be  it  astronomy,  history, 
geography  or  heathen  mythology — which  had  been  taught  by 
means  of  a  catechism  had  been  properly  understood  by  the 
learners. 

A  similar  objection  though  in  a  less  degree  attaches  to  books 
Bo  k  '  th  on  science  or  history  in  which  an  attempt  is  made 
conversa-  to  gild  the  pill  by  casting  the  treatise  into  a  con- 
rm'  versational  form.  In  such  books  a  good  boy  and 
girl  are  often  made  to  evince  a  shrewdness  and  a  thirst  for 
knowledge,  which  to  say  the  least  are  remarkable,  to  play  into 
the  teacher's  hands,  to  ask  precisely  the  questions  he  wishes  to 
answer,  and  to  start  only  those  problems  and  difficulties  which 
he  is  specially  prepared  to  solve.  There  is  an  unreality  about 
all  this  which  children  detect  even  more  readily  than  their 
elders,  and  which  causes  them  as  a  rule  to  feel  some  distrust 
and  not  a  little  resentment  at  the  docile  little  interlocutors  of 
the  "Evenings  at  Home,"  or  "  Sanford  and  Merton."  Real 
dialogues  have  a  great  charm  for  children;  but  not  manufac- 
tured dialogues,  too  obviously  written  to  serve  the  purpose  of 
a  lesson. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  use  of  written  examinations. 
Written  ex-  For  the  moment  we  will  put  out  of  view  the  fact 
animations,  that  they  are  the  chief  means  whereby  outside 
public  bodies  estimate  the  work  of  schools,  and  whereby 
examiners  select  candidates  for  the  army  and  for  various 
branches  of  the  public  service.  We  cannot  escape  the  con- 
sideration of  examination  as  a  means  of  selection,  and  of 
awarding  the  prizes  of  life.  But  we  shall  do  well  to  think  of 


Written  Examinations.  167 

it  first  as  an  aid  to  education,  as  a  device  which  we  should 
adopt  on  its  own  merits,  whether  the  pupil  is  likely  to  be  ex- 
amined by  other  authorities  or  not. 

Now,  what  is  it  that  a  judicious  examination  in  writing  does 
for  a  pupil?  Of  course,  it  tests  his  knowledge,  what  they 
But  it  is  also  a  valuable  educational  instrument.  can  test- 
It  teaches  method,  promptitude,  self-reliance.  It  demands  ac- 
curacy and  fulness  of  memory,  concentrated  attention,  and  the 
power  to  shape  and  arrange  our  thoughts.  "Moreover,"  as 
Mr.  Latham  well  observes,  "  behind  all  these  qualities  lies 
something  which  a  mental  physiologist  would  call  massiveness 
or  robustness  of  brain,  or  which  we  call  energy  of  mind.  Of 
this,  so  far  as  it  is  brought  out  in  dealing  with  books  or  ideas, 
we  can  judge  fairly  from  a  written  examination.  We  see  that 
knowledge  has  been  got,  and  know  that  brain-work  has  been 
done  to  get  it,  and  in  addition  we  note  indications  of  strength 
or  feebleness  of  will;  we  can  find  out  pretty  well  from  a  set  of 
papers  whether  a  man  knows  his  own  mind  or  not."  Written 
work  will  call  out  qualities  which  could  not  be  revealed  by 
viva  wee  questions.  The  oral  examination  is  good  for  intellect- 
ual stimulus,  for  bracing  up  the  student  to  rapid  and  prompt 
action;  for  deftness  and  brightness.  But  oral  answers  are  nec- 
essarily discontinuous  and  fragmentary.  The  pupil  receives 
help  and  suggestion  at  every  moment  from  the  play  of  the 
teacher's  countenance,  from  the  answers  given  by  his  fellows. 
Whatever  of  unity  and  sequence  there  is  in  the  treatment  of  the 
subject  is  the  teacher's  work,  not  the  pupil's;  and  until  you 
subject  him  to  the  test  of  writing,  you  have  no  security  that  he 
has  grasped  the  subject  as  a  whole,  or  that  he  is  master  of  the 
links  that  bind  one  part  of  that  subject  to  another. 

Nevertheless  we  have  to  postulate  here  that  there  are  certain 
very  valuable  qualities  which  are  not  revealed   what  they 
hi  a  written  examination,  and  which  the  habit  cannot  test, 
of  exclusively  relying  on  such  examination  does  not  encour- 
age.     Except  in  so  far  as  diligence  and  obedience  are  con- 
cerned, examinations  do  little  to  test  moral  qualities,  or  active 


168  Examining. 

power.  They  do  not  tell  you  whether  the  action  of  mind  has 
been  rapid  or  sluggish,  nor  how  far  the  pupil  has  been  influ- 
enced by  a  sense  of  duty  or  by  strong  interest  in  his  work. 
Still  less  do  they  help  you  to  gauge  those  attributes  on  which 
success  and  honor  in  life  so  much  depend;  sympathy  with  hu- 
man beings,  deference  for  superiors,  the  power  of  working  with 
and  influencing  others;  address,  flexibility,  manner.  Let  us 
once  for  all  acknowledge  that  either  for  educational  purposes, 
or  for  testing  and  selection,  with  a  view  to  the  requirements  of 
a  University  or  of  the  public  service;  the  best  examinations  do 
not  test  the  whole  man,  but  leave  some  important  elements  of 
character  to  be  ascertained  by  other  means;  and  we  have  still 
to  ask,  within  what  limits  examinations  are  valuable,  and  how 
we  can  get  the  maximum  of  good  out  of  them.  If  we  get  at 
wrong  results  by  trusting  to  examinations,  it  is  not  because  ex 
animations  are  misleading  or  inequitable,  but  because  we  use 
them  too  exclusively,  and  do  not  also  make  a  due  use  of  other 
means  of  judging. 

It  often  happens  that  pupils  who  present  themselves  for  some 
public  examination  for  the  first  time  are  hindered  by  flurry  and 
nervousness  from  doing  themselves  justice.  But  this  is  because 
the  conditions  of  the  examination,  the  silence,  the  printed  paper, 
the  isolation,  the  utter  impossibility  of  getting  a  friendly  hint, 
or  word  of  encouragement,  or  any  assurance  that  they  are  in 
the  right  way,  are  entirely  new  to  them.  But  these  conditions 
ought  not  to  be  new,  for  they  are  in  themselves  a  discipline  in 
self-possession  and  self-mastery.  We  do  well  therefore  to  ac- 
cept them,  not  as  a  grievance,  but  as  having  a  value  of  their 
own;  and  if  our  pupils  are  looking  forward  to  any  public  ex- 
amination, to  make  that  examination  subservient  to  our  pur- 
poses as  teachers,  not  to  allow  ourselves  to  be  dominated  by  it. 

In  making  up  our  minds  on  this  subject  we  must  beware  of 
False  meta-  being  misled  by  false  metaphors.  We  are  told 
phore.  sometimes  that  the  habit  of  probing  children  often, 

either  by  written  or  oral  examinations,  is  like  digging  up  the 
root  of  a  flower  to  see  how  it  grows,  and  those  who  talk  thus 


Dishonest  Preparation.  169 

say  much  as  to  the  value  of  stillness  and  meditation,  and  the 
importance  of  leaving  scope  for  silent  growth,  and  for  the 
natural  action  of  the  child's  own  mental  powers.  But  there  is 
no  true  analogy  here.  The  act  of  reproducing  what  we  know, 
and  giving  it  new  forms  of  expression,  is  not  an  act  of  loosen- 
ing, but  of  fixing.  We  must  of  course  abstain  from  needless 
and  irritating  questions,  but  we  may  not  forget  that  with  a 
child,  to  leave  him  unquestioned  and  untested  is  not  to  give 
better  room  for  the  spontaneous  exercise  of  his  own  faculties, 
but  simply  to  encourage  stagnation  and  forgetfulness. 

There  is  another  still  more  unpleasant  metaphor  often  used  in 
connection  with  the  subject  of  examinations.  They 
are  said  to  encourage  cram;  and  this  word  has 
come  to  be  currently  used  as  a  convenient  term  to  designate  any 
form  of  educational  work  which  the  speaker  may  happen  to 
dislike  or  wish  to  discredit.  But  we  should  try  to  clear  our 
minds  of  illusions  on  this  point.  If  by  this  term  we  mean  dis- 
honest preparation,  hasty  and  crude  study,  a  contrivance  by 
which  persons  may  be  made  to  seem  to  know  more  than  they 
actually  understand;  we  are  all  alike  interested  in  denouncing 
it.  But  it  is  not  necessarily  encouraged  by  examinations.  On 
the  contrary,  this  is  precisely  what  every  good  examination  is 
meant  to  detect.  And  every  examiner  who  knows  his  business 
can  easily  discern  the  difference  between  the  knowledge  which 
is  genuine  and  has  been  well  digested,  and  that  which  is  super- 
ficial and  is  specially  got  up  to  deceive  him.  Dishonestly  pre- 
pared men  undoubtedly  come  up  for  examinations,  but  they  do 
not  pass,  and  the  blame  of  the  transaction  rests  with  those  who 
send  them  up,  not  with  the  examinations  themselves. 

It  is  plain  that  this  ugly  term  cannot  properly  apply  to  read- 
ing, writing,  and  arithmetic.  A  child  can  either  perform  these 
acts  or  he  cannot;  whether  he  can  perform  them  or  not  is  ascer- 
tainable  by  a  simple  test,  and  if  he  can  perform  them  well  he 
has  acquired  an  accomplishment  of  permanent  value.  He  may 
have  been  unskilfully  taught,  or  taught  by  too  slow  a  process, 
but  he  cannot  have  been  "crammed"  or  dishonestly  taught. 


170  Examining. 


What  is  implied  by  the  use  of  this  term  is  often  that  the  work 
which  has  been  done  is  of  the  wrong  sort,  that  it  has  been  done 
in  an  excited  eager  way,  and  with  too  great  a  consciousness  of 
the  imminence  of  the  examination.  It  is  your  business  to  watch 
any  tendency  in  this  direction  and  to  guard  against  it. 

Here,  however,  it  is  to  be  noted,  that  if  the  scholar  is  per- 
mitted to  attempt  in  two  months,  work  which  ought  to  occupy 
a  year,  it  is  the  ten  months'  slackness,  and  not  the  two  months' 
exceptional  effort,  which  constitutes  the  evil.  Even  this  is  an 
evil  which  it  is  easy  to  exaggerate.  It  is  good  for  us  all  through 
life  to  have  in  reserve  the  power  of  putting  Special  energy  into 
our  work  at  particular  emergencies.  Such  emergencies  occur 
occasionally  in  after  years  when  we  do  not  think  of  effort;  when 
we  willingly  "scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days,"  and 
when  the  whole  faculty  and  strength  are  concentrated  on  the 
solution  of  one  practical  problem,  or  the  achievement  of  one 
object  of  strong  desire.  So  long  as  the  health  does  not  suffer 
we  do  not  object  to  see  a  boy's  power  strained  and  concentrated 
on  a  cricket-match,  or  a  girl's  on  some  decoration  or  festival, 
although  we  know  that  the  effort  is  excessive,  and  could  not 
properly  be  continued.  Nature  is  very  kind  to  young  people, 
and  restores  their  energies  to  their  proper  balance  very  soon; 
and  she  will  do  it  we  may  be  sure  quite  as  readily  with  the  in- 
tellectual as  well  as  with  the  physical  powers.  For  one  au- 
thentic case  of  permanent  injury  to  the  health  of  a  school-boy 
or  girl  from  too  much  mental  exercise,  there  are  twenty  ex- 
amples of  scholars  who  suffer  from  idleness  or  inaction. 

But  grant  that  special  pressure  of  this  kind  is  an  unmixed 

evil;  it  might  easily  be  avoided  in  your  school 
Precautions 
against  the      work  if  you  will  bear  in  mind  two  or  three  simple 

abuse  Of  6Z-       Tvrp^mitinnQ- 

animations.       Precaui 

(1)  Do  not  undertake  to  prepare  the  pupils  of 

your  school   for  more  than  one  external  examination,   and 

make  sure  that  the  scheme  selected  corresponds  to  your  own 

aim  and  ideal  of  school- work. 

(2)  Having  selected  it,  look  its  requirements  well  in  the  face 


Legitimate  Preparation.  171 

a  good  year  beforehand,  arrange  all  your  work  so  that  a  small 
but  distinct  approach  shall  be  made  towards  your  end  every 
day.  Refuse  to  allow  any  pupil  to  present  himself  unless  he 
has  had  time  and  opportunity  to  do  his  work  well. 

(3)  Do  not  let  any  part  of  the  preparation  be  considered  ex- 
ceptional, but  incorporate  the  whole  of  it  as  far  as  possible  into 
the  daily  programme  of  the  school. 

(4)  If  you  have  a  few  pupils  going  up  for  the  Oxford  or  the 
Cambridge  Local  Examinations,  or  any  other  which  offers  a  con- 
siderable variety  of  alternative  subjects,  select  for  them  all  the 
one  or  two  of  such  subjects  which,  having  regard  to  your  own 
tastes  and  to  the  qualifications  of  your  teaching  staff,  you  feel 
to  be  most  appropriate.     Do  not  cut  up  the  organization  of  the 
school  and  waste  your  own  teaching  power  by  letting  the  pupils 
choose  their  own  alternatives.     Of  course  it  is  a  good  thing  to 
consider  the  individual  bent  of  each  child  and  to  encourage  it. 
But  you  cannot  do  this  wisely  in  the  matter  of  examinations 
except  where  the  pupils  have  access  to  private  tuition.    The  in- 
terests of  every  pupil  in  a  school  are  best  consulted  in  the  long- 
run  by  his  learning  that  which  others  are  learning,  and  which 
the  school  can  teach  best. 

(5)  It  is  a  good  plan  to  hold  a  fortnightly  or  monthly  ex- 
amination in  writing,  extending  over  the  principal  subjects  to 
be  taught,  and  conducted  under  the  same  conditions  of  silence 
and  complete  isolation  which  are  observed  in  public  examina- 
tions.   Besides  this,  it  is  well  much  more  frequently  to  give,  in 
connection  with  each  subject,  a  single  question,  to  be  answered 
fully  in  writing.    The  teacher  should  read  some  of  the  answers 
aloud,  and  point  out  their  several  defects,  and  then  invite  his 
class  to  watch  him  while  he  gives  a  model  answer,  as  complete 
as  he  can  make  it,  both  as  regards  matter  and  style. 

For  school  purposes  it  is  well  often  to  use  a  form  of  examina- 
tion which  would  be  impossible  in  public  competitions,  viz.,  to 
give  more  time  and  to  allow  the  use  of  books.  After  all,  some 
of  the  best  efforts  we  make  in  after  life  are  made  under  these 
conditions,  and  the  art  of  using  authorities  and  of  referring  to 


172  Examining. 

them,  is  one  which  a  school  ought  to  teach.  Some  subjects 
lend  themselves  better  to  this  form  of  exercise  than  others,  e.g. 
biography,  the  description  of  a  country,  the  explanation  of  the 
theory  of  a  mathematical  rule,  the  preparation  of  an  essay  on 
some  familiar  subject  of  fact  or  moral  speculation.  Here  you 
do  not  want  to  test  memory,  but  the  power  of  using  all  the 
resources  at  one's  disposal— books  as  well  as  thought.  So  a 
teacher  may  wisely  say  now  and  then,  "Here  is  a  question 
which  wants  a  little  thinking,  I  will  give  you  two  days  to 
answer  it,  and  you  may  get  the  answer  where  and  how  you 
like." 

In  drawing  up  a  paper  of  questions,  or  determining  how 
Preparation  manv  vou  should  set,  you  will  be  guided  by  ch- 
ef written  cumstances.  If  you  have  to  examine  a  number  of 
5US'  persons  not  your  own  pupils,  it  is  always  well  to 
give  more  questions  than  can  be  answered,  and  to  require  the 
student  to  choose  a  limited  number  of  those  he  can  answer  best. 
In  the  India  Civil  Service,  where  the  competition  is  absolutely 
open,  and  where  it  is  the  business  of  the  examiners  to  do  full 
justice  to  men  who  have  different  tastes,  and  have  been  very 
differently  taught,  I  have  been  accustomed  to  set  a  long  paper, 
say  of  20  questions,  and  require  that  no  candidate  shall  take 
more  than  six.  We  thus  give  a  wide  range  of  choice,  and  at 
the  same  time  forbid  a  man  to  attempt  a  good  many  questions, 
and  so  to  accumulate  marks  by  superficial  knowledge.  At  the 
University  of  London,  where  the  curriculum  of  instruction  is 
more  strictly  defined,  but  where  the  candidates  have  been 
taught  on  very  different  systems,  it  is  usual  at  Matriculation  to 
set  in  most  subjects  about  15  questions,  and  to  limit  the  scholar 
to  ten.  But  in  a  school  where  the  teacher  is  himself  the  ex- 
aminer, and  where  he  knows  exactly  what  has  been  taught  and 
what  ought  to  be  known,  it  is  not  desirable  to  offer  any  choice 
or  to  set  more  questions  than  can  be  answered  easily  in  the 
time.  It  is  he,  not  the  pupil,  who  should  choose  the  questions 
which  have  to  be  answered. 

As  a  rule,  it  is  not  desirable  to  sit  down  to  frame  a  paper  of 


Vicious  Forms  of  Question.  173 

questions  all  at  once.  If  the  examiner  relies  on  his  memory, 
or  general  knowledge  of  the  subject,  his  questions  will  have  a 
sort  of  family  likeness,  will  deal  with  what  his  pupils  know  to 
be  his  special  fancies,  and  so  will  probably  be  anticipated. 
And  if  he  sits  down  to  prepare  a  paper  by  the  help  of  a  text- 
book, he  is  tempted  to  select  such  questions  as  turn  on  obscure 
or  isolated  details,  matters  easy  to  question  on,  but  of  little  real 
value.  So  he  should  usually  have  his  note-book  with  him,  and 
from  time  to  time,  as  experience  in  teaching  suggests  to  him 
some  good  form  of  question,  he  should  jot  it  down,  so  as  to 
have  a  store  of  such  questions  ready  for  use  when  they  are 
wanted.  You  are  much  more  likely  to  adapt  your  questions 
to  the  actual  knowledge  of  the  scholars  if  you  do  this,  than  if 
you  attempt  to  recall  the  whole  subject  at  once. 

The  first  requisite  of  a  good  paper  is  that  it  shall  be  clear 
and  unmistakable  in  its  meaning.     All  obscurity,   Tegt  of  & 
all  pit-falls,  and  all  ambiguity  should  be  avoided,   good  paper 
for  they  defeat  their  own  purpose.  of  <iuestions- 

The  next  thing  necessary  is  that  the  paper  should  be  per- 
fectly fair,  i.e.  exactly  adapted  to  the  scholar's  age  and  attain- 
ments; and  to  what  he  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  do.  The 
moment  you  allow  yourself  to  think  of  the  effect  that  your 
questions  will  have  on  parents  or  on  the  outside  public,  you 
are  in  danger  of  proving  unfair  to  the  scholars.  The  object  of 
the  paper  is  to  draw  out  their  knowledge,  not  to  detect  their 
ignorance.  You  want  to  encourage  them  to  do  their  best  with 
the  materials  they  have,  and  there  is  a  want  of  perfect  candor 
towards  them,  when  you  present  them  with  a  paper  which  you 
have  drawn  rather  to  display  your  own  knowledge  than  theirs, 
and  rather  to  impress  other  people  with  the  width  and  excel- 
lence of  your  curriculum  than  to  correspond  to  any  reasonable 
requirements  you  can  make  of  your  pupils.  I  knew  a  large 
private  school  in  Yorkshire,  the  principal  of  which  used  his 
last  paper  of  examination  questions  as  a  printed  advertisement, 
which  was  exhibited  at  railway  stations  and  in  newspapers, 
together  with  a  prospectus  of  the  school,  and  a  highly  idealized 


1V4  Examining. 

wood-cut  representing  that  establishment,  though  a  mean  one, 
as  one  of  palatial  elevation  and  park-like  surroundings.  I  need 
not  say  that  the  questions  were  of  a  very  formidable  kind,  and 
were  calculated  to  astonish  and  impress  ignorant  people.  But 
what  the  boys  thought  of  them,  how  they  had  answered  them, 
and  what  sort  of  moral  influence  a  master  could  hope  to  gain 
over  children  whom  he  caused  to  be  parties  to  an  imposture, 
the  outside  public  were  not  informed,  though  I  think  some  of 
us  can  guess. 

Then  a  good  proportion  of  the  questions  in  every  paper  should 
Straight-  ^  on  m&tters  °f  ^act  and  of  memory,  plain  straight- 
forward- forward  questions  in  a  familiar  form,  such  as  the 
average  scholar,  who  has  merely  been  diligent, 
but  who  has  no  genius,  and  not  much  talent  for  composition, 
may  feel  encouraged  to  answer.  Simple  questions  are  always 
best;  for  they  help  you  to  do  full  justice  to  commonplace 
pupils,  and  yet  there  is  scope  enough  in  them  for  difference  in 
the  manner  and  substance  of  the  answer,  to  distinguish  be- 
tween such  pupils  and  the  best.  Still,  over  and  above  these 
simple  questions,  I  should  always  put  two  or  three  which  require 
a  little  thought  to  interpret,  and  which  will  afford  opportuni- 
ties to  the  best  scholars  to  distinguish  themselves.  Say  I  draw 
a  paper  of  ten  questions  on  Arithmetic.  I  would  let  seven  of 
them  be  honest,  straightforward  sums  in  the  form  which  the 
scholar  would  naturally  expect;  but  I  would  add  three  which 
required  an  explanation  of  principles,  and  which,  without 
being  puzzles  or  conundrums,  were  designed  to  call  forth  the 
ingenuity  and  thought  of  the  best  scholars.  Every  paper  you 
set  has,  it  must  be  remembered,  an  educational  value  over  and 
above  its  office  as  a  mere  test.  It  is  liable  to  be  referred  to  and 
read  again,  and  it  helps  to  set  up  among  your  scholars  the  ideal 
at  which  you  are  aiming.  So  let  us  bear  in  mind  that  a  good 
examination,  when  it  has  fulfilled  its  first  duty  as  an  honest 
scrutiny  of  what  the  pupils  ought  to  have  learned  already,  has 
also  to  f  ulfil  the  second  purpose  of  showing  what  you  think  they 


Estimation  of  Written  Answers.  175 

ought  to  aim  at,  and  in  what  way  you  wish  their  own  thoughts 
to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  their  work. 

There  is  a  kind  of  examining  which  has  a  sad  tendency  to 
beget  untruthfulness  on  the  part  of  both  teachers  and  scholars; 
I  mean  that  in  which  young  or  immature  students  are  encour- 
aged to  use  language  which  they  do  not  understand,  and  which 
presupposes  a  speculative  and  philosophic  power  which  they 
do  not  yet  possess. 

Let  me  read  to  you  some  questions  lately  set  at  a  public  insti- 
tution to  some  young  people  who  had  been  attending  a  course 
of  lectures: 

"  What  is  General  History,  and  how  is  a  scientific  treatment  of  this 
subject  possible? 

What  are  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Chinese  political  and 
social  organization? 

What  do  the  Vedas  contain?  How  do  you  account  for  the  develop- 
ment of  Brahmanism  in  India,  and  what  are  the  analogies  between  the 
Indian,  Egyptian,  and  Greek  mythologies? 

Who  were  the  Persians?  Sketch  their  mythical  period,  and  give  the 
principal  incidents  of  their  history,  and  the  causes  of  their  decline. 

Who  were  the  Greeks,  and  what  was  their  influence  on  the  intellectual 
development  of  humanity  ? 

Give  the  principal  laws  of  Lycurgus  and  Solon,  their  analogies  and 
differences,  and  describe  their  influence  on  the  formation  of  the  Greek 
character. 

Name  the  most  important  philosophical  schools  of  Greece. 

What  were  the  chief  causes  that  led  to  the  establishment  of  the 
Empire  at  Rome? 

What  were  the  principal  causes  of  the  rapid  progress  of  Christianity 
from  an  historical  point  of  view?" 

I  have  seen  some  of  the  answers  to  these  questions,  in  which 
there  are  no  facts,  but  much  vague  talk  about  the  philosophic 
teaching  of  Thales  and  Anaximander,  and  about  the  static  and 
dynamic  forces  of  humanity.  The  pretentiousness  and  false- 
hood of  all  this  will  be  apparent  to  you  at  once.  Here  are 
questions  which  the  most  accomplished  scholars  could  not  an- 
swer without  effort,  placed  in  the  hands  of  raw  beginners,  who 


1Y6  Examining. 

are  thus  temp  tea  to  indulge  in  philosophic  generalization  while 
profoundly  ignorant  of  the  data  on  which  all  such  generaliza- 
tion ought  to  rest. 

1  will  suppose  that  you  have  framed  your  eight  or  ten  ques- 
The  estima-  tions  in  view  of  the  actual  knowledge,  both  of  the 
tion  of  writ-  ordinary  scholar,  and  of  the  best  who  want  an  op- 
ers>  portunity  of  distinguishing  themselves;  it  then  be- 
comes necessary  to  estimate  the  answers.  On  the  whole,  the 
ordinary  arithmetical  test  is  the  fairest  and  the  least  liable  to 
error.  You  determine  on  a  maximum,  say  100,  to  represent 
the  highest  attainable  excellence.  You  then  assign  a  due  propor- 
tion of  marks  to  each  question  according  to  its  difficulty.  It  is 
a  good  plan  to  distribute  about  90  in  this  way,  reserving  the  last 
ten  for  style,  neatness  and  finish,  and  general  skill  of  arrangement. 
In  distributing  your  90  marks  among,  say,  ten  questions,  you  will 
give  perhaps  12  to  one,  and  6  to  another,  according  to  the  amount 
of  knowledge  and  intelligence  required  to  produce  a  perfect 
answer.  But  I  would  not  tell  the  scholars  which  questions  car- 
ried most  marks.  It  is  not  good  that  they  should  be  speculat- 
ing and  inquiring  what  are  the  relative  values  of  different  an- 
swers in  your  mind.  It  is  enough  to  tell  them  to  select  those 
questions  which  they  can  answer  best;  and  you  will  judge,  if 
one  fastens  on  the  purely  memory  work,  while  another  chooses 
to  give  the  best  of  his  time  to  those  questions  which  require 
some  thought  and  originality  to  answer  them,  how  such  an- 
swers ought  to  be  estimated. 

As  you  read  each  answer  in  turn,  you  should  set  down  the 
How  to  read  ProPorti°n  °f  tlie  maximum  number  assigned  to 
an  examina-  that  particular  question  which  the  answer  de- 
an paper,  ggj-veg  n  js  essential  that  this  should  be  done 
with  each  question,  and  that  there  should  be  no  room  left  for 
caprice  or  hasty  impression  by  attempting  to  mark  the  value  of 
the  paper  as  a  whole.  Nevertheless,  before  passing  on  to  an- 
other paper,  and  while  your  recollections  are  perfectly  fresh,  it 
is  well  to  add  up  the  result  and  see  if  the  total  appears  to  repre- 
sent fairly  the  general  merit  of  the  paper  considered  as  a  whole. 


Negative  Marks.  IVY 

For  it  may  be  that  the  scholar  though  evidently  writing  from 
a  full  mind,  has  mismanaged  his  time,  has  given  needlessly  ela- 
borate answers,  say  to  four  questions,  for  which  he  has  the 
maximum  marks,  and  yet  has  a  smaller  total  than  an  inferior 
scholar  who  has  attempted  eight  questions,  and  has  scored  a 
fair  number  for  each.  This  should  be  set  right  at  once  by  the 
addition  of  a  few  marks  for  general  ability.  It  is  not  safe,  or 
really  equitable,  to  leave  the  total  of  each  scholar's  marks  to  be 
added  up  afterwards. 

In  mathematics  it  is  not  difficult  for  a  student,  by  doing  all 
the  exercises  right,  both  in  method  and  result,  to  obtain  the  full 
number  of  marks.  But  in  other  subjects  the  maximum  will 
rarely  or  ever  be  attained,  as  it  will  represent  in  the  examiner's 
mind  the  highest  conceivable  standard  of  excellence,  and  it  is 
very  unlikely  that  this  will  be  attained  in  every  one  of  a  num- 
ber of  questions  in  History  or  Literature.  So  in  most  subjects 
I  should  regard  as  a  good  paper  that  which  obtained  three  quar- 
ters, and  as  a  fair  or  passable  paper  that  which  received  half 
of  the  marks. 

Great  care  should  be  taken  to  keep  your  own  judgment  equi- 
tably balanced  while  you  are  reading.  So  before  marking  any, 
it  is  well  to  read  over  several  papers,  choosing,  if  you  have  any 
sort  of  clew,  one  or  two  likely  to  be  good,  and  one  or  two  likely 
to  be  indifferent,  and  so  fix  the  standard  of  what  it  is  reasonable 
to  expect.  With  this  standard  in  your  mind  it  will  be  fair  to 
begin  marking  the  answers  one  by  one.  If  you  are  examining 
for  any  prize  or  competition,  it  is  needful  to  give  the  papers  a 
second  reading,  comparing  not  only  paper  with  paper,  but  an- 
swer with  answer.  For  ordinary  pass  examinations  this  is  not 
necessary. 

It  is  sometimes  asked  whether  negative  marks  should  ever  be 
given,  or  marks  deducted  for  ignorance.     That   Negative 
depends  on  the  kind  of  ignorance.      Mere  ab-  marks. 
sence  of  knowledge  ought  not  to  be  counted  as  a  fault,  other- 
wise than  as  depriving  the  pupil  of  the  marks  which  would 
have  been  due  to  knowledge.      It  ought  not,  I  think,  to  be 
12 


178  Examining. 

punished  by  the  subtraction  of  marks  to  which  other  knowl- 
edge would  entitle  him.  But  the  sort  of  pretentious  ignor- 
ance which  makes  blunders  and  mistakes  them  for  knowledge, 
which  indulges  in  grand,  sonorous  and  vague  statements  care- 
fully constructed  to  conceal  the  lack  of  true  information,  ought 
to  be  punished  as  a  fault.  A  bad  and  inflated  style,  false  spell- 
ing, the  use  of  words  which  are  not  understood,  may  not  unrea- 
sonably be  visited  with  the  forfeiture  of  marks  to  which  the 
mere  memory  work  would  be  entitled.  But  you  must  make 
allowance  for  a  few  very  innocent  blunders,  such  as  will  be 
inevitable  among  young  people  who  are  being  put  to  this  sort 
of  test  without  much  previous  practice.  When  a  scholar  tells 
you  that  "we  derive  a  good  deal  of  our  early  knowledge  of 
English  History  from  an  ancient  chronicler  named  Adam 
Bede,"  that  "Buckingham  was  at  first  a  friend  of  Dryden, 
but  that  he  afterwards  became  one  of  his  contemporaries,"  or 
that  "Sir  Wm.  Temple  was  a  statesman  in  the  time  of  Charles 
II.  who  had  a  hand  in  the  Triple  Alliance,  and  who  in  later 
life  acquired  some  odium  by  writing  Essays  and  Reviews,"  you 
y  •  1  ,  may  set  it  down  as  mere  bewilderment,  which  does 
punishable  not  mean  ignorance,  which  would  be  corrected  by 
a  moment's  thought,  and  should  therefore  not  be 
counted  as  a  fault.  On  the  other  hand,  a  blunder  such  as  that 
of  a  man  who,  in  commenting  on  the  passage  in  Milton  refer- 
ring to  "  our  sage  and  serious  poet  Spenser"  as  "  a  better  moral- 
ist than  Scotus  or  Aquinas,"  said  that  these  worthies  were  "  two 
licentious  poets  of  the  period;"  or  that  of  the  student  who  said 
that  "  John  Locke  was  a  poet  who  was  knighted  by  Queen 
Elizabeth,"  or  that  of  him  who  wrote  that  "  the  Americans 
were  so  grateful  for  the  services  of  George  Washington  that 
they  made  him  a  peer,"  ought  to  be  reckoned  as  a  fault  to  be 
punished,  because  in  each  case  it  is  a  mere  guess,  put  out 
rather  dishonestly  with  the  chance  of  its  being  right  or  with 
the  deliberate  intention  of  practising  on  the  possible  ignorance 
or  carelessness  of  the  examiner. 
Even  in  class  work,  thejxmrse  of  oral  questioning  may  some- 


The  Morality  of  Examinations.  1*79 

times  be  advantageously  interrupted,  by  requiring  the  answer 
to  be  given  by  all  the  students  immediately  in  writing  instead 
of  word  of  mouth.  If  you  want  to  know  whether  all  the  class 
knows  a  French  verb,  or  a  number  of  dates,  or  a  group  of 
names,  this  is  an  expeditious  and  very  thorough  method.  And 
here,  when  you  have  examined  the  note-books  by  the  plan  of 
mutual  correction  or  otherwise,  the  result  may  well  be  tabulated 
in  a  numerical  form.  But  in  ordinary  oral  questioning  of  a 
class  and  estimating  its  result,  I  do  not  think  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible to  adopt  the  arithmetical  mode  of  measurement  with  per- 
fect exactness,  and  therefore  I  would  not  use  it  at  all,  but  em- 
ploy other  symbols  such  as  Excellent,  Good,  Fair,  Moderate, 
which  are  better  fitted  to  describe  general  impressions. 

And  yet  now  the  most  important  thing  remains  to  be  said. 
This  whole  problem  of  examinations  and  the  right  The  moraijtv. 
way  of  conducting  them  and  preparing  for  them  of  examina- 
touches  very  nearly  the  morality  of  the  school  life. 
Look  well  to  the  influence  which  the  examinations  you  use  are 
having  on  the  ideal  of  work  and  duty  which  your  scholar  is 
forming.  Ask  yourself  often  if  that  which  will  enable  him  to 
do  best  in  examination  is  also  that  which  is  best  for  him  to  learn. 
Watch  how  the  prospect  of  the  examination  tells  upon  his  meth- 
ods of  study,  his  sense  of  honor,  his  love  of  truth.  Determine 
that  whatever  happens,  you  will  not  pay  too  heavy  a  price  for 
success  in  examinations.  Discountenance  resolutely  all  tricks, 
all  special  study  of  past  papers,  and  of  the  idiosyncrasies  of 
examiners,  and  all  speculations  as  to  what  it  will  and  what 
it  will  not  "  pay"  to  learn.  It  is  because  sufficient  regard  is  not 
paid  to  these  considerations,  that  many  thoughtful  persons  now 
are  fain  to  denounce  examinations  altogether,  as  the  bane  of  all 
true  learning,  and  as  utterly  antagonistic  to  the  highest  aims  of 
a  teacher.  There  ought  however  to  be  no  such  antagonism. 
In  their  proper  place,  examinations  have  done  great  service  to 
education,  and  are  capable  of  doing  yet  more.  But  they  can 
only  do  this  on  one  condition.  Let  us  make  sure  that  for  us, 


180  Examining. 

and  for  our  pupils,  success  in  examinations  shall  not  be  regarded 
as  an  end,  but  as  a  means  towards  the  higher  end  of  real  cul- 
ture, self-knowledge  and  thoughtfulness.  And  let  us  keep  in 
mind  for  them  and  for  ourselves  the  old  sound  maxim:  "  Take 
care  of  everything  but  the  examination,  and  let  the  examina- 
tion take  care  of  itself." 


Preparatory  Training.  181 


VII.    PREPAEATOEY  TRAINING. 

I  HOPE  the  subject  of  very  early  instruction  will  not  appear 
to  any  one  here  to  be  insignificant  or  beneath  no-   preparatory 
tice.     In  the  higher  departments  of  instruction   training. 
we  want  to  have  at  our  disposal  faculties  which  have  been  dis- 
ciplined and  brought  into  active  and  systematic  exercise;  and 
it  would  be  well  if  we  could  presuppose  that  all  this  discipline 
has  been  obtained  in  the  preparatory  school.    But  there  are  two 
very  good  reasons  why  teachers  in  Grammar  schools  or  public 
schools  should  try  to  form  clear  notions  about  elementary  and 
even  infant  training.     First,  because  that  training  is  often  in- 
complete, and  needs  to  be  prolonged  into  an  advanced  course. 
It  is  not  a  creditable  thing  that  the  simple  arts  of 
good  reading,  spelling,  and  legible  writing,  should   the  attention 


be  so  despised  and  disregarded  that  youths  who 
have  been  at  public  schools  are  often  inferior  in 
these  respects  to  the  children  of  National  Schools.  Year  by 
year,  many  young  men  who  come  up  to  be  examined  for  com- 
missions in  the  army,  and  in  the  higher  departments  of  the 
Civil  Service  —  young  men  who  are  presumed  to  have  had  a 
liberal  education,  are  rejected  for  bad  spelling;  and  their  writ- 
ing, as  I,  an  old  examiner,  have  good  reason  to  know,  is  almost 
ostentatiously  slovenly  and  illegible;  the  scribble  of  men  who 
think  good  writing  a  thing  for  clerks  and  shopmen,  and  beneath 
the  consideration  of  gentlemen.  One  reason  therefore  for  ask- 
ing your  attention  to  these  elementary  matters  is  because  pro- 
vision ought  to  be  more  systematically  made  in  higher  schools 
for  teaching  them  properly,  if  the  preparatory  school  has  failed 
to  do  it;  and  in  cases  where  the  preparatory  training  has  been 


182  Preparatory  Training. 

good,  care  should  at  least  be  taken  to  see  that  the  lessons  shall 
not  be  lost,  but  that  the  higher  course  shall  strengthen  rather 
than  destroy  the  neat  and  accurate  habits  which  have  been  once 
acquired. 

Another  reason  why  I  hope  you  will  not  think  these  simple 
matters  are  beneath  your  attention  is  that  even  the  highest  class 
of  teachers  are  often  called  on  to  organize  and  superintend  pre- 
paratory departments;  or  at  least  to  test  their  work  and  see  that 
they  fulfil  their  proper  purpose.  They  should  therefore  make 
up  their  own  minds  as  to  what  is  the  difference  between  good 
and  bad  early  training,  and  how  to  discern  that  difference. 
They  are  called  on,  if  not  to  be  the  educators  of  very  young 
children,  at  least  to  be  the  critics  and  guides  of  those  who  un- 
dertake this  work.  They  suffer  if  the  preparatory  training  has 
been  unskilful;  and  they  should  be  ready  when  occasion  arises 
to  point  out  to  the  teachers  in  preparatory  schools,  how  their 
work  ought  to  be  done. 

Now  it  would  be  beyond  my  proper  province  to  attempt 

here  an  analysis  of  the  parts  respectively  to  be 
Principles  to  ,  ;;  ,  ; :      „         .       . 

be  kept  in        played  by  the  senses   and  the   intellect  in  the 

development  of  a  child.  That  the  way  to  the  un- 
derstanding is  through  the  senses;  that  in  early 
childhood  the  senses  are  more  active  than  the  intelligence,  and 
that  the  first  teaching  should  therefore  be  addressed  to  the  eye 
and  the  ear  rather  than  to  the  reflective  powers,  are  truisms,  on 
which  we  need  not  dwell.  The  processes  by  which  sensation 
leads  the  way  to  knowledge,  and  knowledge  to  inference  and 
reasoning,  are  some  of  the  most  fertile  subjects  of  inquiry,  and 
will  be  duly  brought  before  you  by  my  successor,  as  parts  of 
mental  philosophy  in  its  bearing  on  teaching.  Here  however 
it  may  suffice  to  say  that  one  of  the  first  things  needed  in  early 
training  is  to  teach  a  child  how  to  use  his  fingers,  his  ears,  and 
his  eyes;  and  that  whether  he  does  this  well  or  ill  makes  a 
great  difference  to  him  all  through  his  later  course. 

The  child  who  has  learned  in  infancy  to  look  steadily  at  the 
forms  and  aspects  of  the  things  near  him,  is  later  in  life  a  better 


The  Training  of  the  Senses.  183 

observer  of  nature,  and  student  of  physical  science.  He  gets 
more  enjoyment,  and  more  culture  from  seeing  The  training 
pictures,  or  fine  scenery,  than  if  he  had  been  accus-  of  tne  senses, 
tomed  to  gaze  aimlessly  and  vaguely  at  the  things  around  him. 
He  who  has  been  taught,  by  exercises  ever  so  childish,  steadi- 
ness of  hand  and  precision  of  touch,  is  better  fitted  hereafter 
to  be  a  good  draughtsman  or  musician.  And  no  training  of 
ear  to  the  finer  differences  of  vocal  inflection  and  expression  is 
without  a  very  important  bearing  on  literary  perception  and 
taste.  We  need  not  concern  ourselves  here  with  subtle  specula- 
tions as  to  the  exact  priority  or  interdependence  of  sensual  and 
intellectual  perception.  "  NiMl  in  intellects,  quod  non  prius  in 
sensu,"  may  or  may  not  be  a  tenable  dogma  in  speculative  phi- 
losophy; but  we  know  at  least  that  the  development  of  greater 
sensitiveness  to  sight  and  sound  is  accompanied,  almost  neces- 
sarily, with  the  development  of  intellectual  power;  that  out- 
ward expression  is  a  great  help  to  inward  clearness;  and  that 
whether  we  call  the  quickening  of  physical  sensibility  a  part  of 
lower  or  of  higher  education,  it  is  too  important  a  factor  in  the 
life  and  usefulness  of  a  man  to  be  disregarded  by  any  teacher 
whether  high  or  low. 

In  the  later  stages  of  education,  you  do  not  so  much  concern 
yourself  with  conscious  training  of  the  senses,  in  the  form  of 
direct  exercises,  although  you  know  that  some  studies,  notably 
botany,  chemistry,  drawing  and  music  have  special  value  in 
making  observation  and  hearing  accurate.  And  you  should 
not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  over  and  above  the  practical  or 
intellectual  uses  of  these  studies,  there  is  a  distinct  gain  from 
them  in  the  form  of  a  finer  sensibility,  and  of  new  capacity  for 
interpreting  and  enjoying  the  world  your  pupil  has  come  to 
live  in.  Still,  within  the  ordinary  domain  of  school  life,  the 
exercises  which  specially  concern  the  use  of  the  senses  are  (1) 
the  discipline  of  the  Infant  School,  and  (2)  the  arts  of  reading 
and  writing  and  drawing  as  practised  later.  To  these  we  must 
confine  our  present  inquiries. 

The  necessity  for  more  definite  and  intentional  training  of 


184  Preparatory  Training. 

the  senses  has  been  insisted  on  with  much  earnestness  by  Pesta- 
The  Kinder-  lozzi,  by  Rousseau,  and  by  George  Combe,  and 
garten.  yOU  ^jj  (jo  wejj  ^  study,  in  some  detail,  what 

those  writers  have  said  on  the  subject.  But  it  is  to  Frobel  that 
we  owe  the  clearest  recognition  of  the  main  principle,  and  the 
most  systematic  effort  to  reduce  that  principle  to  practical  ap- 
plication. His  method  of  infant  training,  to  which  the  rather 
fanciful  name  of  Kindergarten  has  been  given,  has  been  ex- 
pounded with  much  care  and  clearness  by  Miss  Shirreff,  by 
Miss  Maning,  and  in  German  by  the  Baroness  Billow,  all  of 
whom  have  the  true  spirit  of  discipleship;  for  they  begin  by 
reverencing  their  master,  and  end  by  interpreting  his  message  to 
the  world  more  clearly  than  he  was  able  to  explain  it  for  himself. 
Frobel  devised  a  series  of  exercises  for  young  children  be- 
ginning at  the  age  of  three  or  four.  He  knew  that  the  first 
things  children  want  to  do  are  to  see,  to  handle,  to  move  about 
and  to  exercise  their  senses,  and  he  sought  to  arrange  a  set  of 
simple  and  appropriate  employments,  with  a  conscious  educa- 
tional purpose,  and  in  careful  obedience  to  the  suggestions  of 
Nature.  To  the  youngest  he  gives  a  box  of  wooden  bricks,  to 
arrange,  and  to  build  up,  in  imitation  of  the  model  designs, 
made  before  him  by  the  teacher.  Then  come  exercises  in  the 
careful  folding  of  colored  papers  into  different  forms;  the 
plaiting  of  straw  or  strips  of  paper  into  patterns,  the  pricking, 
or  sewing  with  colored  thread  of  little  pictured  diagrams;  the 
tracing  of  lines  gradually  increasing  in  length,  number,  and 
complexity,  so  as  to  develop,  unexpectedly,  new  and  pleasing 
geometrical  designs.  Besides  these  Frobel  provides  organized 
games,  little  dramatic  performances,  dances  and  physical  move- 
ments of  a  rhythmic  kind,  to  simple  music,  and  conversational 
lessons  in  which  the  little  ones  are  made  to  talk  about  a  picture, 
to  assume  and  act  out  their  several  parts,  and  to  help  one  an- 
other piece  together  their  experiences  of  a  farm-yard  or  a  garden, 
of  a  street  or  of  a  kitchen.  I  have  seen  many  such  little  experi- 
ments in  Kindergarten  schools,  or  rather  hi  those  infant  schools 
which  have  a  kindergarten  department;  and  there  is  no  doubt 


Merits  of  the  Kindergarten  System.         185 

that  the  system,  iu  the  hands  of  bright  and  sympathetic  teach- 
ers has  many  very  substantial  advantages.  FrSbel's  method 
certainly  increases  the  happiness  of  little  children;  j^  advan- 
and  this  is  a  clear  gain.  It  greatly  diminishes  the  tag68- 
difficulty  of  the  problem,  how  to  fill  up  their  time  at  school; 
for  a  long  day  spent  in  any  one  of  the  ordinary  forms  of  in- 
struction is  very  wearisome  to  young  children;  and  teachers 
have  long  been  wanting  to  know  how  to  vary  the  employments 
of  infants  in  a  school,  so  as  to  keep  them  under  discipline,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  avoid  tiring  and  overstraining  them  with 
lessons,  and  giving  them  unpleasant  associations  with  the 
thought  of  learning.  To  such  teachers,  the  little  gifts  and  ex- 
ercises of  Frobel  are  a  great  boon.  Interspersed  among  the 
graver  employments,  they  absorb  the  attention  and  powers  of 
the  little  ones,  without  giving  them  any  sense  of  fatigue.  In- 
fants learn  obedience,  fixed  attention,  accuracy  of  eye,  steadi- 
ness of  hand;  they  learn  to  count,  and  to  know  the  nature  of 
color  and  of  form.  They  are  exercised  in  imitation,  in  inven- 
tion, and  in  the  elements  of  drawing  and  design.  And  all 
these  lessons  are  learned  in  the  best  of  all  ways;  without  being 
considered  as  lessons;  not  indeed  in  the  shape  of  lessons  at  all, 
but  rather  as  so  much  play.  They  are  in  fact  organized  play, 
with  a  conscious  and  direct  educational  purpose.  But  this  pur- 
pose is  not  obtruded  before  the  children,  who  think  that  they 
are  being  amused  when  in  fact  they  are  being  systematically 
taught.  Experience  shows  that  children  who  have  been  dis- 
ciplined on  this  system  are  found  (1)  to  have  got  the  rudiments 
of  writing,  counting,  and  drawing,  and  to  be  better  prepared 
for  the  ordinary  subjects  of  school  instruction  than  others;  and 
(2)  to  have  obtained  in  an  indirect  way  a  good  deal  of  use- 
ful training  which  shows  itself  in  quickened  sensibility,  and 
prompter  intelligence. 

Hence  I  strongly  recommend  those  of  you  whose  advice  is 
likely  to  be  asked  as  to  the  organization  of  preparatory  schools 
for  very  young  children  to  make  yourselves  acquainted  with 
some  of  the  books  I  have  named,  and  to  be  ready  to  take  ad- 


186  Preparatory  Training. 

vantage  of  the  good  parts  of  the  system.  At  the  same  tune,  I 
may  venture  to  add  two  or  three  cautions,  which  the  writers  of 
books  on  the  system  do  not  give.  I  do  not  blame  them  for 
this.  The  best  work  in  the  world  is  not  done  by  criticism,  but 
by  enthusiasm.  The  sort  of  cold-blooded  and  balanced  esti- 
mation of  the  good  and  bad  points  in  a  system,  which  is  ap- 
propriate for  us  in  this  place,  is  not  to  be  expected  or  indeed  to 
be  desired  on  the  part  of  those  earnest  men  and  women,  who  in 
rebelling  against  the  inert  and  unintelligent  discipline  to  which 
little  children  are  often  subjected,  have  perhaps  exaggerated 
the  value  of  Frobel's  method.  Let  us  admit  that  if  they  had 
not  seen  that  method  in  a  very  strong — perhaps  even  an  untrue 
light, — they  would  not  have  made  so  many  converts,  or  done 
nearly  so  much  good. 

So  I  would  warn  you  first  that  it  is  very  useless  to  try  to  adopt 
Its  success  *kis  system  unless  you  have  some  one  to  work  it, 
depends  on^  who  has  faith  in  it,  and  the  special  aptitude  and 
personal er  '  enthusiasm  which  will  help  her  to  make  the  best 
s^te.  of  ft  In  the  hands  of  spiritless  teachers,  who 

look  on  it  merely  as  a  system  which  anybody  can  adopt;  and 
who  just  seek  to  carry  out  the  methods  in  a  book  of  diagrams 
and  patterns,  which  describes  FrObel's  gifts  and  games  in 
regular  sequence,  the  results  will  be  very  poor.  Much  joyous- 
ness  of  nature,  versatility  and  sympathy,  and  rather  unusual 
power  of  telling  a  story,  and  of  encouraging  children  to  talk  to 
her  and  to  one  another  are  indispensable  in  the  teacher,  if  the 
system  is  to  have  its  proper  effect. 

There  is  one  fault  to  which  exactly  the  opposite  kind  of 
,  teachers — the  most  sympathetic  and  enthusiastic, 
its  useful-  are  specially  prone;  and  that  is  to  make  too  much 
of  the  system,  and  to  expect  from  it  more  than  it 
can  do.  Your  thoroughgoing  Kindergartner  is  not  content  to 
make  the  FrObel  exercises  an  element  in  the  school  life  of  a 
child.  He  wants  to  make  them  the  whole.  He  will  keep  chil- 
dren up  to  the  age  of  six  or  seven  engaged  all  day  in  straw- 
plaiting  or  paper-folding,  in  dancing  round  a  maypole,  and  in 


Limits  to  its  Usefulness.  187 

singing  and  reciting  childish  verses.  He  is  apt  to  mistake 
means  for  ends.  He  has  got  hold  of  a  novel  and  pleasing  in- 
strument for  occupying  the  attention  of  the  children;  and  he 
thinks  that  so  long  as  they  are  orderly  and  attentive,  all  is  well. 
He  keeps  the  little  ones  looking  at  diagrams  and  pictures,  when 
he  might  be  teaching  them  to  read.  He  employs  them  in  mak- 
ing marks,  of  which  they  see  no  meaning,  when  their  faculties 
of  imitation  might  just  as  well  be  exercised  in  a  writing  lesson. 
He  allows  them  to  spend  much  time  in  the  manufacture  of 
woven  patterns  and  paper  ornament;?,  which  the  child  sees  to 
have  no  value  in  themselves,  long  after  the  time  when  the 
elementary  training  of  hand  and  eye  might  just  as  well  be  ap- 
plied to  drawing,  or  sewing,  or  knitting,  or  something  else 
which  the  children  know  to  be  of  real  use.  Children  know 
very  well  that  they  come  to  school  to  learn.  They  want  to  do 
something  of  which  they  can  see  the  purpose.  They  are  not 
being  well  prepared  for  the  serious  work  of  school,  or  of  after 
life,  if  all  that  they  are  required  to  do  looks  like  amusement 
and  play.  The  Kindergarten  gives  them  nothing  which  seems 
like  work;  it  does  not  train  them  to  overcome  difficulties. 

Let  us  be  clear  on  this  point.  Do  not  let  us  manufacture 
difficulties  under  a  notion  that  we  have  to  brace  und  harden 
children's  natures;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  do  not  let  us  elabo- 
rately keep  all  difficulties  out  of  sight.  This  is  'just  as  grave 
an  error.  Let  us  admit  the  paramount  necessity  of  the  training 
of  faculties.  Nay,  let  us  go  farther,  and  confess  that  nine 
teachers  out  of  ten  err  by  overlooking  this  view  of  their  work, 
and  supposing  that  the  whole  of  their  business  is  to  impart  in- 
struction. Nevertheless  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  school  life 
is  too  short  to  justify  us  in  spending  much  time  in  training,  for 
the  sake  of  training ;  and  that  when  we  have  got  a  power  or 
faculty  into  vigorous  action  the  sooner  we  set  it  to  work  on 
some  of  the  practical  problems  of  life  the  better. 

Besides,  though  the  faculty  of  observation  is  a  very  useful 
one,  it  is  quite  possible  to  exaggerate  its  importance.  In  the 
long  run  it  is  a  less  valuable  factor  in  the  intellectual  life  than 


188  Preparatory  Training. 

the  habit  of  reflection.  And  the  Kindergarten  does  little  or 
The  habit  of  nothing  to  encourage  reflection.  It  helps  children 
£bse^atkm  ^  appreciate  more  clearly  the  visible  and  the  con- 
mount  im-  crete;  but  it  scarcely  conducts  them  a  step  to- 
wards the  abstract  and  the  in  visible.  They  learn  to 
look,  to  hear,  to  act  in  concert;  but  all  the  thinking,  and  nearly 
all  the  talking  is  done  by  the  teacher  for  them.  This  is  not  a 
fault  in  the  system,  but  it  is  one  of  the  limits  to  its  usefulness, 
and  we  must  bear  it  in  mind. 

In  studying  Frobel's  life  and  doings,  you  will,  I  think,  re- 
R-obeland  spect  his  enthusiasm,  and  admire  his  child-like 
his  work.  sympathetic  nature.  You  will  not,  I  think,  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  took  a  large  or  very  sound  view  of  the 
purpose  of  education  as  a  whole.  He  was  not  a  scholar,  and 
to  the  last  he  somewhat  undervalued  the  sort  of  knowledge 
which  is  to  be  got  from  books.  But  he  saw  with  intense  clear- 
ness certain  simple  truths  which  bear  on  the  discipline  and 
happiness  of  little  children.  Let  us  be  thankful  for  such  seers 
and  prophets,  even  if  they  only  give  us  half-truths.  There  is 
something  touching  in  the  remark  of  the  Baroness  Billow,  one 
of  his  most  earnest  disciples,  "  The  heavenly  light  given  to  a 
man  seldom  spreads  its  ray  over  the  whole  of  his  being;  but 
only  lights  up  the  field  whereon  he  is  called  to  build."  It  is 
well  for  each  of  us  if  the  light  is  clear  and  steadfast  enough  to 
show  us  the  duty  which  we  can  do  best.  For  FrSbel  the  field 
thus  illuminated  extended  over  the  heart  and  the  life  of  child- 
hood, the  beginnings  of  knowing  and  thinking,  the  functions 
and  the  duties  of  the  primary  teacher — a  region  which  indeed 
has  definite  frontiers,  but  is  wide  and  varied  enough  to  satisfy 
a  much  more  daring  ambition  than  his. 

I  repeat,  then,  that  whenever  you  have  the  opportunity  of 
exercising  influence  over  a  preparatory  school,  you  will  do  well 
to  see  that  in  reasonable  measure  the  methods  of  FrObel  are 
adopted.  They  will  have  value  up  to  the  age  of  seven  if 
judiciously  incorporated  with  other  forms  of  early  instruction, 


Heading.  189 

although,  for  the  reasons  I  have  given,  I  do  not  think  that  they 
should  be  allowed  to  supersede  such  instruction. 

And  now  let  us  gather  together  a  few  of  the  plainer  results 
of  experience  in  reference  to  the  teaching  of  the  rudimentary 
arts  of  reading,  spelling,  and  writing. 

One  of  the  first  difficulties  with  which  we  are  confronted  is 
the  fact  that  our  language  presents  so  many  ortho- 
graphical  and  phonetic  anomalies.  In  this  respect 
it  differs  notably  from  French,  in  which  there  are  comparatively 
few,  from  German,  in  which  there  are  fewer,  and  from  Italian, 
in  which  there  are  scarcely  any.  We  all  know  that  ours  is  a 
composite  speech,  a  conglomerate  of  many  languages;  that  the 
portion  of  it  which  was  spoken  before  it  was  written — the 
purely  English  portion  and  the  earlier  derivatives  from  Latin 
and  from  Norman  French — is  full  of  queer  and  capricious 
spelling;  while  other  portions  of  it,  the  Greek  and  the  Latin 
derivatives,  which  have  come  to  us  later  through  the  medium 
of  literature,  are,  on  the  whole,  spelled  according  to  a  consis- 
tent system,  and  present  little  or  no  difficulty.  If  we  want  an 
exhaustive  and  very  entertaining  summary  of  the  chief  diffi- 
culties presented  by  our  English  system  of  spelling,  I  may  refer 
you  to  Prof.  Meikle John's  clever  little  book,  "  The  Problem  of 
Teaching  to  Read."  Here  it  may  suffice  briefly  to  indicate  the 
nature  of  the  difficulty  which  has  to  be  surmounted. 

There  is  first  of  all  our  anomalous  alphabet.    And  it  would 
be  easy  to  show  that  it  has  every  fault  that  an   The  anom- 
alphabet  can  have.    A  perfect  alphabet  should,  it  ^ij^the 
may  well  be  argued,  have  a  single  and  fixed  char-   Alphabet, 
acter  for  every  single  indivisible  elementary  sound.    It  should 
have  such  compound  characters  for  composite  or  diphthongal 
sounds  as  would  indicate  clearly  the  elements  of  which  they 
are  composed.    It  should  also  have    similar   characters  for 
analogous  or  related  sounds.     Nothing  is  easier  than  to  lay 
down  these  conditions,  and  to  see  that  our  alphabet  violates 
every  one  of  them.    It  is  at  the  same  time  redundant  and  do- 


190  Preparatory  Training. 

fective.    It  has  not  enough  characters,  and  those  which  it  has 
it  does  not  make  the  best  of;  e.g.: 

(1)  A  single  and  indivisible  consonant  is  sometimes  expressed 
by  a  clumsy  combination  of  two  letters  instead  of  one  charac- 
ter, as  thin,  thine,  s/iould. 

(2)  There  are  often  two  or  more  ways  of  writing  the  same 
sound,  as  fancy,  philosophy,  and  rough.    Duty,  neuter,  lewd, 
and  beauty.    Nation,  sure,  «7iall,  viezbus. 

(3)  The  same  letter  has  many  sounds,  as  father,  fan,  fate,  fall. 

(4)  The  alphabet  disguises  altogether  the  true  elements  of 
composite  sounds:  the  sound  of  oil  is  not  made  up  of  o  and  i, 
but  of  au  and  ee. 

(5)  It  fails  altogether  to  indicate  the  true  relations  between 
cognate  sounds;  the  i  in  pine  is  called  the  long  sound  of  the  t 
in  pin;  but  these  sounds  are  not  related;  the  true  lengthening 
of  pzn  is  into  peen,  not  pane.     So  the  p  is  related  to  the  b  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  t  to  the  a"  or  the  s  to  the  z;  but  there  is  no 
such  similarity  of  characters  as  to  represent  these  relations. 

(6)  It  sometimes  gives  us  a  compound  sound  expressed  by  a 
single  letter,  as  Reject,  conceal. 

(7)  It  more  often  gives  a  group  of  letters  to  represent  a  single 
indivisible  sound — Daughter,  though. 

(8)  The  names  of  the  letters  are  very  misleading  as  represen- 
tations of  their  powers,  as  Gee  for  G.    Aitch  for  H.    Double 
you  for  W. 

Such  is  only  a  part  of  the  indictment  against  the  English 
Pr  nosed  Alphabet.  Shall  we  try  to  get  up  a  society  for 
reform  of  the  reforming  it?  Well,  I  for  one  should  not.  First, 
because  the  task  is  so  formidable.  To  do  it  ef- 
fectually we  must  have  38  characters  instead  of  26;  we  must 
cease  to  employ  many  of  the  letters  we  now  use,  and  the  whole 
aspect  of  the  written  language  must  be  altered.  And  even 
when  the  written  language  had  been  truly  conformed  to  the 
speech  of  the  capital  and  of  educated  persons,  it  would  remain 
untrue  and  non-phonetic  in  Yorkshire  and  Devonshire,  and 
even  in  Scotland  and  Ireland,  unless  all  provincialisms  and  dia- 


The  English  Alphabet.  191 

lectic  varieties  are  to  be  obliterated;  which,  is  neither  probable, 
nor  in  itself  eminently  desirable.  Then  the  price  we  should 
pay  for  such  a  reform  would  be  very  heavy.  We  of  this  gen- 
eration, who  have  been  educated  in  the  anomalous  system, 
would  learn  the  new  one,  I  grant,  without  much  difficulty;  and 
for  our  lifetimes  both  the  old  and  the  new  literature  would  be 
read.  But  to  the  next  generation,  educated  on  the  more 
rational  principle,  our  present  spelling  would  be  hopelessly  un- 
intelligible, and  the  whole  of  our  past  literature,  everything  that 
is  not  worth  re-printing,  would  become  a  foreign  language,  and 
would  remain  unread  by  our  successors.  It  is  not  easy  to  see 
how  such  a  result  could  be  avoided;  yet,  if  it  occurred,  the  gain 
would  be  enormously  counterbalanced  by  the  loss. 

Again,  the  difficulties  of  our  present  system  may  easily  be  ex- 
aggerated, and  have  been  exaggerated.  The  syllables  which  are 
not  spelt  phonetically  are,  relatively  to  the  whole  language, 
not  very  numerous. 

Our  alphabet  also  is  a  historic  one,  and  like  the  British  consti- 
tution represents  historic  growth.  Its  very  anomalies  throw  a 
great  deal  of  light  on  the  history  and  origin  of  words.  No 
doubt  the  spelling  is  occasionally  misleading  too,  on  this  point. 
If  I  lay  down  a  rule,  that  whenever /is  represented  by  ph,  or  k 
by  ch,  the  word  is  Greek,  or  that  whenever  c  represents  «  and 
commences  a  syllable  the  word  is  Latin;  or  that  whenever  w 
comes  before  A  it  is  English,  we  may  find  exceptions  to  the  rule; 
yet  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty  the  rule  is  good;  and  thus 
the  very  inconsistencies  of  our  alphabet  often  furnish  a  key  to 
the  meaning  or  history  of  a  word. 

Lastly,  I  would  not  advise  spending  much  time  on  an  effort 
for  a  sweeping  legal  reform  in  our  alphabet,  be-   A  soraewhat 
cause  there  is  little  or  no  chance  of  its  success,   hopeless 
Consider  what  has  happened  in  the  matter  of  deci- 
malizing our  weights  and  measures.     Our  present  arithmetical 
tables  are  far  more  clumsy  and  indefensible  than  our  alphabet. 
They  give  a  great  deal  more  of  trouble  to  teachers,  and  of 
mental  entanglement  to  pupils.    Moreover  it  would  be  a  far 


192  Preparatory  Training. 

easier  process  to  reform  them.  Many  proposals  for  adopting 
the  French  systtme  metrique  or  at  least  for  decimalizing  and  sim- 
plifying our  present  weights  and  measures  have  been  made 
from  tune  to  time.  But  the  English  people  and  its  parliament 
have  steadily  opposed  all  these  projects,  and  we  seem  at  this 
moment  much  farther  from  the  adoption  of  a  rational  and  sim- 
ple system  of  compound  arithmetic  than  we  were  twenty  years 
ago.  And  we  may  conclude,  in  like  manner,  that  though  in- 
genious proposals  will  be  made  from  time  to  time,  for  the 
amendment,  on  philosophical  principles,  of  English  spelling, 
those  proposals  have  little  chance  of  being  carried  out  in  our 
time.  By  the  general  consent  of  literary  and  learned  people  we 
may  fairly  hope  that  some  improvements  may  be  effected  and 
the  more  grotesque  anomalies  removed.  But  the  conservative 
instincts  of  the  nation  in  matters  like  this  are  very  strong;  and 
I  think  it  in  the  highest  degree  unlikely  that  for  the  sake  of 
saving  a  little  trouble  to  teachers,  the  nation  will  put  itself  to 
the  inconvenience  of  adopting  a  new  alphabet  and  making  a 
break  in  the  continuity  of  its  own  literary  life. 

So  we  may  make  up  our  minds  that  any  effort  to  obtain  a 
The  lan-  complete  and  scientific  reform  in  the  English 
S£^'h£/to  alphabet,  will  probably  be  futile;  and  that  any 
be  taught.  other  than  a  complete  reform  would  hardly  be 
worth  contending  for.  It  may  go  a  little  way  to  reconcile  some 
of  us  to  this  conclusion,  if  we  reflect  that  after  all  the  anomalies 
and  difficulties  do  not  seem  so  great  to  a  little  child  as  to  us. 
He  accepts  the  spelling  you  teach  him,  on  your  authority,  and 
he  is  very  little  impressed  by  its  want  of  philosophic  precision. 
You  spell  the  word  mat,  and  as  there  are  three  distinct  sounds 
represented  by  three  distinct  letters,  which  are  tolerably  uni- 
form in  their  powers,  the  word  satisfies  you.  And  then  you 
spell  the  word  through,  and  you  feel  it  to  be  unsatisfactory. 
The  first  word  is  spelt  philosophically,  the  second  is  spelt  un- 
philosophically.  But  to  the  child,  though  one  is  a  little  easier 
than  the  other,  it  is  just  as  arbitrary.  He  receives  them  both 
on  your  authority.  To  him  it  is  all  alike  mysterious.  Neither 


Methods  of  Teaching  Heading.  193 

his  moral  nor  his  phonetic  sensibilities  are  wounded  by  un- 
philosophical  spelling.  You  will  have  to  tell  him  the  one  word 
twice  over  and  the  other  only  once.  But  when  once  thoroughly 
known,  it  is  known  for  life,  and  he  will  not  be  troubled  by  its 
anomalous  character.  Nay,  he  will  never  know  that  there  is 
any  anomaly  in  it,  until  in  the  fulness  of  time  he  is  old  enough 
to  become  a  member  of  the  Philological  Society  or  the  Spelling 
Reform  Association,  and  to  have  his  critical  faculty  called  into 
action  under  its  auspices. 

It  is,  then,  the  English  language  as  it  is,  and  not  as  it  might 
be,  nor  even  as  it  ought  to  be,  that  we  have  to   Modeg  of 
take  for  better  for  worse,  and  to  teach  in  the  best   teaching 
way  we  can.     How  shall  we  set  about  it?    There 
are,  as  is  well  known,  three  different  methods: 

(1)  There  is  the  method  of  teaching  the  Alphabet  first,  then 
proceeding  to  words  of  two  letters,  then  to  words  of  three,  and 
so  on  in  order.  This  is  a  method  of  synthesis. 

(3)  There  is  what  is  called  the  Look  and  say  method,  which 
begins  by  showing  children  words,  and  requiring  them  to  be 
recognized  as  a  whole  and  pronounced,  before  calling  attention 
to  the  letters  of  which  they  are  composed.  This  is  a  method  of 
analysis. 

(3)  There  is  the  Phonic  method,  which  avoids  the  names  of 
the  letters  at  first  altogether,  and  simply  seeks  to  teach  their 
powers.  Groups  of  words  are  given  in  which  the  same  sounds 
occur,  and  these  words  are  decomposed  into  their  elementary 
sounds,  which  children  are  taught  to  utter  separately. 

Now,  in  favor  of  the  last  method,  it  may  be  truly  urged  that 
the  real  composition  of  the  utterances  we  call  words,  is  better 
seen  by  rendering  them  into  their  elementary  sounds,  than  by 
calling  those  elements  by  arbitrary  names.  That  is  quite  true. 
But  the  objection  to  it  is  that  the  same  letter  has  so  many  dif- 
ferent sounds,  that  even  if  I  learn  to  identify  each  with  a  sound 
and  not  a  name,  I  shall  be  constantly  making  mistakes,  e.g., 
you  give  the  significance  of  I,  and  illustrate  it  by  lend,  lo,  ill, 
ancl/wW,  and  then  you  come  to  a  word  like  should,  in  which  it 
13 


194  Preparatory  Training. 

is  not  pronounced  at  all.  Writers  of  Phonic  reading  books 
get  over  this  difficulty  by  printing  in  italics  the  letters  which 
are  not  sounded,  and  by  printing  over  those  vowels  or  combina- 
tions of  letters  which  have  an  abnormal  sound,  an  accent  or 
mark  of  some  kind  to  indicate  their  exceptional  characters. 
But  the  objection  to  this  is  that  ordinary  books  are  not  printed 
thus,  and  that  therefore  the  child  will  have  something  to  unlearn 
when  he  goes  from  his  special  phonic  school-book  to  any  other 

A  graver  objection  to  this  method,  and  the  real  cause  of  its 
failure,  is  the  extreme  difficulty  of  isolating  elementary  sounds 
and  pronouncing  them  apart. 

The  method  would  not  be  unsuited  to  older  people  who  were 
learning  the  written  language  for  the  first  time,  but  it  pre- 
supposes that  little  children  are  more  distressed  by  orthographic 
anomalies  than  they  really  are.  They  can  in  fact,  pronounce 
words,  and  divide  them  into  syllables;  but  to  them  the  analysis 
of  syllables  into  their  components  is  a  task  much  harder  than 
the  mere  learning  of  arbitrary  characters. 

Against  the  purely  Alphabetic  method  it  is  easy  to  urge  that 
the  names  of  the  letters  do  not  express  their  powers;  that  singly 
and  apart  they  have  no  meaning  for  children,  and  are  held  in 
the  mind  by  no  associations;  that  analysis  is  always  easier  than 
synthesis,  and  that  it  would  interest  a  child  much  more  to  learn 
about  a  word  first  and  examine  its  parts  afterwards,  than  to 
begin  with  the  letters  which,  after  all,  do  not  really  represent 
its  parts  and  afterwards  to  build  up  the  whole. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  "Look  and  say  method,"  which  seeks 
to  give  a  child  a  picture  of  a  word  as  a  whole,  and  teaches  him 
to  read  rather  by  the  general  aspect  of  words  than  by  careful 
observation  of  their  parts,  is  open  to  the  objection  that  many 
words  have  a  general  resemblance  in  their  form,  e.g.  form  and 
from,  tliere  and  Uircc,  board  and  broad,  which  might  be  mis- 
leading, if  they  were  not  subjected  to  close  inspection.  And  this 
method,  if  depended  on  entirely,  is  apt  to  encourage  loose,  care- 
leas,  visual  impressions,  out  of  which  mistakes  constantly  arise. 

Again,  the  philosophers  who  are  so  sensible  of  the  incon- 


Methods  of  Teaching  Heading.  195 

gruity  of  our  alphabet  and  of  the  arbitrary  and  misleading 
effect  of  the  names  of  the  letters,  seem  to  forget  that  long  before 
children  come  under  regular  instruction,  they  have  actually 
learned  the  alphabet  in  the  nursery  or  in  the  Kindergarten ; 
they  have  merely  in  a  game  handled  little  wooden  letters  as 
toys,  talked  about  them  and  arranged  them  in  different  ways; 
and  they  have  seen  no  more  difficulty  in  calling  a  particular 
character  H,  than  in  calling  a  horse  a  horse. 

You  have  therefore  to  deal  with  the  fact,  that  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  the  alphabet,  with  its  indefensible  nomenclature,  is 
already  known,  having  been  learned  in  fact  in  the  most  effec- 
tual way,  without  the  child's  consciousness  that  he  was  learning 
anything.  And  after  all  the  art  of  recognizing  printed  words 
ought  always  to  be  acquired  thus,  little  by  little,  in  short  and 
playful  lessons,  while  children  are  very  young,  and  before  any 
appeal  is  made  to  their  reflection  at  all.  I  believe  that  it  is  a 
grave  mistake  to  postpone  the  first  exercises  in  reading  after 
the  fourth  year,  and  that  the  longer  it  is  postponed  the  more 
difficult  it  becomes.  But  if  this  has  not  been  done,  and  a  child 
of  six  or  seven  has  to  start  de  novo,  it  is  certainly  not  well  to 
begin  by  presenting  the  alphabet.  The  best  way  then  is  to 
place  before  him  a  printed  sheet  with  very  easy  sentences  on  it, 
and  to  read  aloud  a  whole  sentence,  pointing  to  each  word  as 
it  is  pronounced.  Next  the  children  should  be  invited  to  read 
it  with  the  teacher  aloud:  then  to  read  it  together  without  any 
help;  then  one  and  another  should  be  called  on  to  point  and 
identify  each  single  word.  So  far  the  Look  and  Say  method  is 
right.  But  this  lesson  should  be  followed  up  by  asking  them 
in  turn  to  count  the  number  of  letters  in  each  word,  and  by 
writing  each  of  them  down,  and  giving  their  names.  A  card 
containing  the  alphabet  should  hang  near,  and  as  each  letter 
occurs  in  the  words  of  the  little  sentence,  it  should  be  pointed 
out  and  named.  In  this  way,  though  the  alphabet  would  not 
be  taught  at  first  as  a  whole,  or  as  a  separate  lesson,  eacli  letter 
of  it  would  be  learned  as  it  was  wanted,  and  as  it  occurred  in 
some  word  previously  read. 


196  Preparatory  Training. 

The  requirements  of  a  good  reading-book  have  already  been 
Reading.  referred  to.  It  may  be  well  to  recall  attention  to 
books.  them  here. 

(1)  It  should  be  well  printed  and  in  sufficiently  large  type  to 
make  it  very  easy  for  the  child  to  put  his  finger  to  each  word 
as  he  pronounces  it. 

(2)  It  should  be  made  attractive  by  pictures,  and  by  the 
pleasantness  and  interest  of  the  subject.    This  is  of  the  first  im- 
portance. 

(3)  The  lessons  should  not  be  graduated  by  so  mechanical  a 
rule  as  the  mere  length  of  the  words  and  number  of  syllables. 
Many  words  of  three  letters  are  harder  than  those  of  five;  and 
words  like  winter  and  summer  are  much  easier  though  they 
have  two  syllables  in  them  than  words  like  eye,  who,  and  laugh, 
though  they  have  one.     The  real  gradation  does  not  depend  on 
the  length  and  number  of  the  syllables,  but  on  the  number  of 
anomalies  or  difficulties  in  the  words.    The  early  lessons  should 
have  no  anomalous  words  at  all.     But  each  new  lesson  should 
contain  two  or   three  combinations  harder  than  those  of  the 
previous  lesson,  and  several  examples  of  each. 

(4)  If  possible  let  a  good  many  of  the  lessons  be  narrative  and 
in  the  form  of  dialogue,  giving  some  play  for  changes  of  voice. 
Monotony  is  encouraged  by  always  reading  sentences  consist- 
ing of  assertions  only. 

(5)  Again  every  lesson  should  contain  at  least  two  or  three 
words  which  are  a  little  beyond  the  child's  own  vocabulary, 
and  which  therefore  when  learned  will  be  distinct  additions  to 
it.    This  is  very  important.     One  of  the  first  objects  of  a  read- 
ing lesson  is  to  enrich  the  scholar's  store  of  words.     A  lesson 
which  is  so  ostentatiously  childish  that  it  fails  to  add  anything 
to  this  store,  or  to  furnish  material  for  questions,  represents  a 
lost  opportunity. 

(6)  Yet  it  is  of  very  little  consequence  that  the  reading  lessons 
should  be  obviously  didactic  or  instructive,  or  indeed  that  they 
should  convey  any  information  whatever.     Later  on,  of  course, 
we  regard  reading  as  a  means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  is  instruc- 


Spelling.  197 

tion  or  mental  culture;  but  in  the  early  stages,  reading  is  itself 
an  end.  And  whatever  conduces  to  make  it  more  interesting 
facilitates  the  acquisition  of  the  art. 

And  now  suppose  a  book  is  found  which  fulfils  these  con- 
ditions, how  is  it  to  be  used? 

First  it  is  well  to  read  the  passage  aloud  very  carefully  with 
the  proper  intonation,  requiring  the  scholars  to  fix   Teaching 
their  eyes  on  the  book,  and  to  follow  the  teacher,   Reading, 
pointing  out  word  by  word  as  he  utters  it. 

Next,  a  simultaneous  exercise  is  often  found  very  useful. 
The  teacher  reads  the  lesson  again,  and  asks  the  whole  class  to 
read  it  with  him  slowly,  but  still  with  all  the  proper  pauses  and 
inflexions. 

The  third  step  is  to  call  upon  the  class  to  read  the  lesson 
simultaneously  without  him. 

Then  he  challenges  the  scholars  one  after  another  to  read  the 
sentences  separately,  selecting  them  by  name  promiscuously, 
and  causing  the  worst  readers  to  be  appealed  to  much  of  tener 
than  the  rest. 

Afterwards  he  causes  the  books  to  be  closed,  and  proceeds  to 
give  a  few  simple  questions  on  special  words,  and  to  require 
separate  little  sentences  to  be  turned  into  others  which  are 
equivalent,  and  of  which  the  words  are  supplied  by  the 
scholars. 

As  to  spelling,  it  is  often  the  practice  to  print  at  the  top  of  a 
reading  lesson  the  few  hardest  words,  and  cause 
them  to  be  specially  spelt.     I  see  no  particular 
use  in  this.     An  isolated  word  has  very  little  meaning  or  use  to 
children.     But  they  understand  sentences.     It  is  far  better  to 
read  the  sentence  in  which  a  word  occurs,  and  then  ask  to 
have  it  spelled.     And  it  is  a  good  thing  often  to  cause  whole 
sentences   to   be  spelled,  the    class    taking   one  word   after 
another. 

"  The  sun  sheds  light  upon  the  eartJi." 

You  have  all  the  words  spelled  rapidly  through,  but  you 
halt  at  the  word  "Light."  You  call  attention  to  it.  You 


198  Preparatory  Training. 

write  it  on  the  black-board.  You  say  "  I  notice  this  word  was 
difficult.  Let  us  spell  it  again.  I  will  show  you  three  or  four 
other  words  formed  like  it,  Bright,  Might,  Fight.  Let  us  put 
these  into  sentences,  and  spell  them." 

Thus  you  encounter  the  difficulties  of  spelling,  as  you  en- 
counter all  the  other  difficulties  of  life,  as  they  come  before 
you,  one  by  one;  and  try  to  conquer  them  in  detail.  Do  not 
accumulate  the  difficulties  in  a  menacing  and  artificial  column, 
and  expect  them  to  be  dealt  with  all  at  once.  That  is  unreason- 
able. But  a  difficulty  that  emerges  naturally  in  the  course  of 
a  lesson  is  grappled  with  willingly,  and  there  is  some  interest 
in  taking  the  opportunity  of  calling  attention  to  a  few  words 
of  like  character,  and  so  of  'disposing  of  that  particular  diffi- 
culty once  for  all.  Only  in  choosing  your  reading  books,  and 
selecting  reading  lessons,  take  care  that  each  of  the  difficulties 
you  want  to  solve  shall  occur  in  its  own  proper  place  some 
time  or  other. 

Columns  of  words  arranged  alphabetically,  dictionary  fash- 

,   ion,  or  according  to  the  number  of  syllables  in 
To  be  learned  .  rf 

incidentally      them,  are  open  to  several  objections.    They  all 

have  to  be  learned  alike,  yet  some  are  easy  and 


iimns  of  iso-  some  are  difficult,  some  are  familiar  and  useful, 
lated  words.  A,  ,  „  ,  ,  •  ,  i  •  -»«• 

others  wholly  technical  and  unimportant.    More- 

over standing  apart,  they  are  not  associated  with  anything  else 
in  the  child's  mind;  whereas  if  he  read  them  in  a  sentence  he 
would  see  their  bearing  directly.  As  a  general  rule  all  words 
spelt  should  be  seen  in  sentences  in  their  proper  connection, 
not  in  artificial  groups  invented  by  the  book-makers. 

And  with  regard  to  the  large  number  of  words  which  are 
sounded  alike  but  spelt  differently,  the  simplest  way  of  dealing 
with  them  is  not  to  give  them  separate  meanings,  but  to  put 
them  into  little  sentences,  e.g. 

The  wind  blew  hard;  The  sky  is  blue. 
I  stood  by  the  sea',  He  came  to  see  me. 
This  is  their  book;  He  will  stay  there  all  night. 


Dictation.  199 


But  after  all,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  spelling  is  a  mat- 
ter for  the  eye,  not  for  the  ear.  If  it  were  not  Spelling  is 
that  we  had  to  write,  spelling  would  be  an  alto-  n'otforf&i' 
gether  useless  accomplishment;  and  it  is  only  ear. 
when  we  write  that  any  deficiency  in  this  respect  comes  to 
light.  The  notion  of  the  extreme  importance  attached  to  ortho- 
dox spelling  is  comparatively  modern.  Our  ancestors,  as  you 
will  easily  find  if.  you  read  the  Paston  Letters,  or  old  MS.  in 
the  British  Museum,  thought  it  an  accomplishment  to  spell  a 
word  in  many  different  ways,  and  you  will  often  find  the  same 
word  in  two  or  three  different  forms  in  one  document.  But 
since  Johnson,  with  the  general  consent  of  the  literary  men  of 
his  time,  sought  to  fix  the  spelling  of  the  language,  there  has 
come  to  prevail  in  England  an  impression  that  bad  spelling  is  a 
mark  of  extreme  ignorance,  if  not  worse.  Of  course  this  is  a 
very  conventional  and  unreal  standard  of  ignorance;  but  we 
must  take  the  world  as  we  find  it,  and  must  acquiesce  in  the  fact 
that  whatever  else  we  teach  our  scholars  we  shall  get  no  credit 
for  doing  anything  if  they  cannot  spell.  And  the  person  who 
spells  well  is  simply  he  who  carries  in  his  memory  a  good  vis- 
ual impression  of  the  picture  of  the  word  as  it  appears  in  a 
written  or  printed  book.  If  he  has  not  this,  it  is  to  no  purpose 
that  he  can,  merely  as  a  memory  lesson,  recall  the  letters  when 
you  exercise  him  in  oral  spelling.  And  if  he  has  this,  all  else 
is  unnecessary.  There  are  many  persons,  who,  if  you  ask  them 
how  to  spell  receive  or  how  many  s's  there  are  in  necessary, 
would  not  tell  you  readily,  but  would  say  at  once,  "  Let  me 
write  the  word  down,  and  I  will  tell  you  if  it  is  right."  And 
if  it  is  written  down  incorrectly,  it  is  the  eye  which  is  offended 
by  not  seeing  the  accustomed  picture  of  the  word;  it  is  not  the 
verbal  memory  or  the  reason  which  sets  them  right. 

And  hence  we  may  infer  that  it  is  mainly  by  writing  that 

spelling  is  to  be  taught.     And  the  familiar  exer- 

°  .   .   ..        .  .       i,  Dictation. 

cise  oi  Dictation  known  in  all  schools  is  the  prac- 
tical recognition  of  this  obvious  truth.    But  there  are  skilful 
and  unskilful  ways  even  of  conducting  a  dictation  lesson,  and  I 


200  Preparatory  Training. 

hope  it  is  not  beneath  the  dignity  of  this  place  to  add  a  few 
words  on  this  very  simple  matter. 

In  giving  out  a  sentence,  some  teachers  pronounce  one  word 
at  a  time;  in  a  loud  monotone.  But  this  method  is  unsatisfac- 
tory, for  however  loudly  and  clearly  uttered,  single  words  are 
easily  misunderstood.  Others  read  short  fragments,  and  repeat 
them  two,  three,  and  even  four  times.  This  plan  also  leads  to 
mistakes,  for  when  once  a  word  is  written,  it  is  distracting  and 
unnecessary  to  hear  it  again. 

The  best  way  is  first  of  all  to  read  the  whole  passage 
through  once  so  as  to  give  its  general  meaning  and  purpose; 
afterwards  to  read  it  piecemeal,  one  member  of  a  sentence  at  a 
time,  to  read  it  only  once,  but  with  the  inflection  and  tone 
which  carries  its  meaning;  and  to  leave  a  sufficiently  long 
pause  after  each  fragment  to  allow  the  slowest  writer  time  to 
write  it.  The  pauses  should  not  be  determined  by  the  stops, 
nor  by  any  rule  about  uniform  length;  but  should  come  be- 
tween the  logical  elements  of  the  sentence,  so  that  each  piece 
to  be  carried  in  the  memory  should  have  a  unity  and  meaning 
of  its  own.  Here  is  an  example: 

"I  was  yesterday  |  about  sunset  |  walking  in  the  open  fields  |  ,  until 
the  night  |  insensibly  fell  |  upon  me.  1 1  at  first  |  amused  myself  |  with 
all  the  richness  |  and  variety  of  colors  |  which  appeared  |  in  the  western 
parts  |  of  heaven." 

If  it  ever  becomes  necessary  to  say  a  word  or  phrase  more 
than  once,  the  dictator  is  unskilful,  and  must  either  cultivate 
greater  clearness  of  articulation  or  more  patience. 

The  exercise  of  copying  a  passage  out  of  a  book,  though  it 
Transcrip-  should  not  supersede  dictation,  is  occasionally  a 
tion.  useful  substitute  for  it.  It  is  quieter,  and  more 

expeditious.  It  is  apt,  in  the  case  of  a  careless  child,  to  reveal 
exactly  the  same  mistakes,  which  would  have  been  made  in  a 
dictation  lesson;  since  the  words  are  not  looked  at  one  by  one 
but  dictated  to  himself  two  or  three  at  a  time.  And  in  the  case 
of  more  careful  learners,  who  look  at  the  words  and  try  to 


Transcription.  201 


avoid  mistakes,  it  is  evident  that  this  form  of  exercise  is  not 
less  effective.  When  the  exercise  is  finished  it  may  often  be 
examined  and  corrected  by  the  help  of  the  scholars  themselves. 

Having  observed  a  particular  form  of  error  to  occur  more 
frequently  than  others,  you  will  do  well  to  call  at-  Words  to  ^ 
tention  to  it,  and  to  write  the  two  or  three  dim-  used  as  well 
cult  words  plainly  on  the  board.  Follow  up  and 
thrust  home  the  whole  lesson  by  requiring  each  scholar  to 
write  down  the  words  thus  selected,  and  after  this  to  place  each 
of  them  in  a  sentence  of  his  own  construction.  It  is  surprising 
to  me  to  find  how  seldom  this  simple  expedient  is  used  in 
schools.  It  is  to  no  purpose  that  you  explain  a  new  word, 
discuss  its  origin  and  its  various  shades  of  meaning,  and  call 
attention  to  the  peculiarities  of  its  spelling,  so  long  as  the  word 
still  remains  like  the  name  of  some  foreign  city,  outside  the 
range  of  his  own  knowledge  or  experience.  The  first  thing  to 
do  with  a  word  which  you  thus  give  to  your  scholar  is  to  teach 
him  to  use  it.  "  Put  it  into  a  sentence.  Make  up  a  litfje  nar- 
rative in  which  this  word  shall  occur."  Not  till  you  have 
done  this  have  you  any  security  that  the  word  in  question  has 
been  appropriated  and  become  a  real  part  of  his  vocabulary. 
We  have  already  said  that  every  new  word  which  we  thus  add 
to  a  child's  store,  is  a  new  instrument  of  thought,  and  does 
something  to  widen  the  horizon  of  his  understanding.  So  I 
would  say  generally,  "  Never  explain  or  spell  a  new  word, 
without  calling  upon  the  scholar  soon  after  to  make  use  of  it  hi 
a  sentence  of  his  own." 

One  other  caution  is  needed  here,  Do  not  try  to  teach  spell- 
ing by  the  use  of  incorrect  examples.     In   my   Spelling  not 
school  days,  it  was  the  custom  to  set  from  a  {^^^Ict 
printed  book,  letters  and  extracts  grotesquely  mis-   examples, 
spelled,  and  to  tell  us  to  re-write  them  without  mistake.    I 
believe  this  practice  has  nearly  died  out.     But  I  hope  every 
one  here  sees  the  fundamental  objection  to  it  and  indeed  to  all 
such  devices.     Writing  and  spelling  are  imitative  arts,  and  it 
is  essential  that  the  eye  should  see  none  but  good  models  for 


202  Preparatory  Training. 

imitation.  We  have  said  that  to  spell  a  word  well  is  to  have 
an  accurate  picture  of  it  before  the  visual  memory,  so  to  speak. 
But  if  we  set  a  wrong  picture  before  the  learner,  how  do  we 
know  that  he  will  not  carry  that  with  him  instead  of  the  true 
one?  For  here  there  is  no  absolute  right  and  wrong,  nothing 
in  which  the  judgment  can  help  to  set  him  right.  It  is  all  a 
matter  of  arbitrary  usage  and  habit;  and  it  is  therefore  desir- 
able that  the  only  words  which  meet  his  eye  should  be 
rightly  spelt. 
Now  assuming  that  you  have  taught  reading  well  enough  to 

Thou  htful  £*ve  to  vour  s^o^1"8  fluency  and  readiness  and 
and  effective  the  power  to  understand  a  book,  is  it  right  to  stop 
there?  Most  teachers  do  stop  there.  They  think 
they  have  put  into  the  hands  of  their  scholars  the  instrument 
of  all  further  acquisitions  and  that  there  is  an  end  to  it.  Read- 
ing aloud,  considered  as  a  fine  art,  is  very  much  neglected  in 
schools,  especially  in  the  more  advanced  schools  for  boys; 
because  there  it  is  undervalued,  and  thought  of  far  less  im- 
portance than  the  attainment  of  knowledge.  Without  discuss- 
ing this,  we  may  affirm  that  if  the  attention  of  teachers  was 
once  directed  to  the  extreme  usefulness  of  this  art,  they  would 
try  to  find  some  time  for  practising  it.  Consider  how  rare  an 
accomplishment  that  of  really  good  reading  is.  Consider  how 
great  an  acquisition  one  person  who  is  a  fine  and  expressive 
reader  is  in  a  household,  how  much  he  or  she  can  do  to  add  to 
the  charm,  the  happiness,  and  to  the  intelligence  of  the  home. 
By  fine  reading,  of  course  I  do  not  mean  pompous  stagy  elocu- 
tion, which  draws  attention  and  admiration  to  itself,  and  is 
felt  by  the  hearers  to  be  artificial,  but  reading  so  clear,  so  easy, 
so  natural,  that  one  may  listen  to  it  for  an  hour  at  a  time  with 
pleasure,  and  that  no  word,  no  finer  shade  of  the  author's 
meaning,  escapes  or  fails  to  be  conveyed  to  the  mind  of  the 
hearers. 

We  must  not  regard  reading  as  a  merely  mechanical  art  for 
the  reproduction  of  other  people's  thoughts.  It  is  itself  a  dis- 
cipline in  intelligence  and  taste.  It  is  not  only  a  result  but  a 


Expressive  Heading.  203 

means  of  culture.  We  have  said  before  that  to  teach  is  to 
learn.  So  also  to  read  aloud,  to  read  for  others,  to  read  so  as 
to  enlighten,  to  charm,  to  move  your  auditors,  is  the  infallible 
secret  of  being  enlightened,  of  being  charmed,  of  being  moved 
yourself.  Of  many  of  the  best  books  it  may  be  truly  said  that 
they  are  never  thoroughly  comprehended,  until  they  are  well 
read  or  recited.  And  if  you  will  further  consider  that  the 
human  voice  is  the  most  vivid  translation  of  human  thought, 
that  it  is  the  most  supple,  the  most  docile,  the  most  eloquent 
interpreter  of  whatever  is  best  in  the  reason  and  in  the  heart  of 
man,  you  will  see  that  there  is  a  very  real  connection  between 
right  thought  and  right  utterance;  and  that  anything  you  can 
do  to  make  speech  more  finished,  more  exact,  more  expressive, 
and  more  beautiful,  will  have  a  very  direct  bearing  on  the 
mental  and  spiritual  culture  of  your  pupils.  Finally,  let  me 
remind  you  that  of  all  the  arts  and  accomplishments  we  pos- 
sess, this  is  the  one  which  comes  into  use  most  frequently;  and 
that  what  is  done  oftenest  should  be  done  best. 

It  would  carry  us  too  far  to  attempt  here  even  a  compendi- 
um of  the  rules  on  which  good  elocution  depends.    Cfaief      _ 
But  three   points  of  paramount  importance  you   ditions  of 
will  do  well  to  keep  in  view:  They  are 

(a)  Distinct  articulation;  the  power  to  utter  clearly  every 
syllable  and  especially  every  consonant.  You  should  get  to- 
gether a  list  of  words  and  of  sentences  in  which  there  is  a 
special  tendency  to  pronounce  three  syllables  as  two,  or  to 
elide  a  consonant,  e.g.  "  necessary,  distinctness,  Has£  thou 
been?  Ant?  keep  his  commamZmenfe."  Pronounce  these 
words  and  sentences  rapidly,  and  you  will  see  that  a  little 
eifort  is  required  to  enunciate  the  letters  in  italics  with  perfect 
distinctness.  Keep  your  ear  open  for  faults  of  this  kind  and 
correct  them  at  once  in  reading,  before  the  careless  habit  of 
slurred  and  confused  utterance  is  formed.  A  former  colleague 
of  mine,  Mr.  Brookfield,  who  was  himself  a  very  fine  reader, 
was  wont  to  give  this  counsel,  "Remember  your  consonants 
and  forget  yourself." 


204  Preparatory  Training. 

(b)  Frequent  pause.    To  form  a  habit  of  good  reading,  it  is 
necessary  to  begin  by  reading  slowly;  and  to  make  habitually 
many  more  breaks  or  pauses  than  are  indicated  by  the  punctu- 
ation.    The  right  way  of  placing  these  pauses  will  become 
clear  to  any  one  who  has  learned  to  analyze  a  sentence  into 
subject,  predicate,  and  adjuncts.     It  is  a  safe  rule  that  a  slight 
rhetorical  pause,  hardly  a  stop,  should  mark  the  logical  divi- 
sions of  every  sentence,  should  come,  e.g.,  after  a  nominative, 
especially  when  it  is  formed  of  two  or  three  words,  before 
every  preposition,  conjunction,  and   relative,  and  before  any 
word  or  phrase  which  needs  to  be  emphasized. 

(c)  Just  intonation  and  expression.    From  the  first  the  mono- 
tone in  which  children  are  apt  to  read  should  be  discouraged, 
and  they  should  be  trained  to  read  as  they  speak,  putting  the 
same  variety  of  inflections  into  the  printed  words,  as  into  their 
own  conversation.     This  may  be  secured  partly  by  the  selec- 
tion of  well- varied  pieces;  partly  by  challenging  pupils,  when- 
ever they  are  reading  in  an  artificial  tone,  to  close  the  book, 
and  tell  the  substance  of  what  they  have  read  in  their  own 
words;  and  partly  by  enforcing  the  rule  that  the  eye  should 
always  travel  several  words  in  advance  of  the  word  actually 
read,  in  order  that  the  bearing  of  the  uttered  word  on  its  con- 
text may  be  fully  known. 

Besides  the  art  of  reading,  or  reproducing  printed  words, 
Oral  ex-  you  should  have  in  view  the  usef  ulness  of  oral  ex- 
pression.  pression,  or  the  utterance  of  the  pupil's  own 
thoughts  in  his  own  words.  This  is  too  much  neglected  in 
schools.  A  scholar  is  too  often  expected  to  say  only  those 
things  which  he  has  learned,  and  to  say  them  piece-meal  hi 
reply  to  questions  and  in  nearly  the  exact  form  in  which  he 
learned  them.  You  will  do  well  to  say  in  the  last  five  minutes 
of  a  lesson,  "  Which  of  you  can  give  me  the  best  account  of 
what  we  have  learned?"  "  Who  can  tell  me  now  the  anecdote 
which  I  related  just  now?"  There  will  thus  be  an  exercise  in 
consecutive  expression,  and  in  the  choice  and  use  of  words, 
such  as  is  not  to  be  had  in  the  mere  answering  of  definite  ques- 


Writing.  205 

tions.  The  practice  will  give  a  little  trouble  at  first,  and  pupils 
will  be  shy  in  replying;  but  once  adopted,  it  will  be  found  very 
helpful  in  giving  fluency  and  confidence,  and  it  will  have  an 
excellent  reflex  action  on  the  reading,  especially  on  the  ease 
and  naturalness  of  the  tone. 

Make  provision  at  certain  intervals  for  a  little  reading  or 
elocutionary  tournament,  in  which  some  animated   special  ex- 
dialogue  or  dramatic  scene  is  recited  in  the  hear-  ercises- 
ing  of  the  class  by  some  of  the  best  scholars,  who  have  taken 
special  pains  to  prepare  it. 

It  is  well  also  to  cause  interesting  passages  from  good  orators 
or  poets  to  be  learned  by  heart,  and  to  be  repeated  with  particular 
reference  to  accuracy  of  pronunciation  and  just  expression. 

In  many  schools  it  is  found  a  useful  and  interesting  practice 
to  reserve  half  an  hour  a  week  for  giving,  in  the   The  teacher's 
hearing  of  the  scholars,  a  carefully  chosen  reading   o^modS6"1 
from  some  good    poem    or   narrative.      If  you   reading, 
choose  such  a  passage  as  will  awaken  the  attention,  and  read  it 
so  that  it  shall  be  a  treat  to  the  scholars  to  listen  to  it,  they  will 
not  only  have  a  model  for  imitation,  but  they  will  look  with 
more  favor  on  the  art  of  reading  itself,  as  a  means  of  giving 
and  receiving  pleasure. 

And  this,  and  indeed  all  my  rules,  presuppose  that  the 
teacher  should  be  himself  a  good  reader.  You  can  never  bring 
your  scholars  up  to  your  own  level.  So  that  if  you  wish  their 
level  to  be  tolerably  high,  your  own  level  should  be  exception- 
ally high.  No  pains  that  you  can  take  with  yourself  to  in- 
crease the  power,  the  sweetness,  and  the  flexibility  of  your  own 
voice  will  be  wasted.  Reading  is  an  imitative  art,  and  if  you 
are  to  teach  it  well,  you  must  first  think  careful  elocution  worth 
acquiring,  and  then  acquire  it  for  yourself. 

Writing  is  one  of  the  subjects  on  which  there  seems  to  be 
least  to  say.    We  all  feel  that  it  is  a  matter  of 
practice  mainly,  not  of  theory.     In  teaching  it 
there  are  few  or  no  principles  to  explain,  and  a  great  many  ex- 
ercises to  do. 


206  Preparatory  Training. 

As  an  art  it  is  greatly  neglected  in  high  and  public  schools. 
The  habit  of  writing  many  notes,  translation  and  other  exer- 
cises betrays  boys  into  a  scribbling,  running  hand,  before  they 
have  taken  pains  to  form  single  letters  well;  and  very  little  is 
done  to  check  this  tendency.  When  it  is  considered  how 
much  a  legible  handwriting  has  to  do  with  the  comfort  of  one's 
correspondents,  there  seems  to  be  no  good  reason  why  young 
people  who  are  to  be  brought  up  as  gentlemen  and  gentle- 
women should  write  a  worse  hand  than  the  children  of  a 
National  School,  or  why  some  attention  to  writing  per  se 
should  not  be  given  even  in  the  higher  classes  at  the  best 
schools. 

For  every  good  teacher,  in  addition  to  the  immediate  and 
Its  indi-  obvious  results  contemplated  in  giving  lessons  on 

rectimpor-  a  given  subject,  asks  himself:  "  What  particular 
faculties  or  qualities  of  mind  are  being  exercised 
in  these  lessons?"  "  What  is  the  incidental  effect  of  the  teach- 
ing of  this  subject  on  the  .formation  of  the  intellectual  charac- 
ter of  my  scholar?"  And  when  he  looks  at  writing  from  this 
point  of  view,  he  sees  that  it  may  be  a  training  in  accuracy 
of  eye,  in  steadiness  and  flexibility  of  hand,  in  obedience  and 
in  cleanliness;  and  that  every  time  a  scholar  receives  a  writing 
lesson,  his  habits  are  either  being  improved  or  deteriorated  in 
these  respects. 

Now  in  all  good  elementary  schools  it  is  found  easy  to  have 
a  standard  of  excellence  in  this  matter,  and  to  make  every 
child  conform  to  it.  There  are  in  fact  no  bad  writers  in  an 
elementary  school  of  the  best  class.  A  good  method  stead- 
fastly carried  out  is  found  to  be  infallibly  efficacious  even  in 
the  worst  cases.  And  this  method  is  not  elaborate.  Mulhituser 
and  others  have  devised  a  whole  system  of  writing  founded  on 
the  analysis  of  letters  into  their  elements,  and  have  given  names 
to  all  the  parts  of  which  letters  are  formed,  as  the  right  line, 
the  curve  line,  the  link,  the  loop,  and  the  crotchet;  and  I  have 
seen  some  ingenious  lessons  given  of  a  synthetic  kind,  in  which 
•models  of  these  various  parts  having  been  shown  their  names 


Writing.  207 

were  dictated,  so  that  letters  and  words  emerged  one  after 
another.  But  in  practice  such  systems  have  not  been  found  of 
much  use,  for  they  make  a  needless  demand  on  the  memory, 
and  they  give  separate  names  to  things  which  have  no  separate 
value  or  meaning.  The  success  attained  in  good  elementary 
schools  in  teaching  the  art  of  writing  is  due  to  much  simpler 
methods.  A  proper  graduation  of  letters  according  to  the 
difficulty  and  complexity  of  the  lines  composing  them  is  found 
to  fulfil  the  same  purpose  as  a  classification  of  those  lines  them- 
selves. There  are  but  26  letters;  and  if  the  n,  m,  I,  u,  and  i  are 
formed  into  one  group,  the  o,  c,  a,  q,  and  d  into  a  second,  the 
r,  b,  w,  and  «  into  a  third,  the  g,  h,f,j,  p  into  a  fourth;  and  if 
those  letters  which  do  not  conform  to  these  types,  as  8,  z,  k,  x, 
are  reserved  to  the  last,  the  classification  suffices  for  practical 
purposes,  and  the  teacher  gives  as  copies  in  succession,  not  the 
single  letters,  but  little  words  which  contain  them,  and  which 
have  more  interest  for  children. 

A  good  copy  being  the  first  condition,  careful  supervision, 
and  the  prompt  correction  of  each  mistake,  will  do  nearly  all 
the  rest.  Complex  oral  directions  as  to  how  to  hold  the  pen, 
and  how  to  sit,  are  not  needed.  Gauclwrie  and  bad  attitude 
may  be  pointed  out  in  special  cases,  but  there  is  no  harm  in 
allowing  different  modes  of  handling  a  pen  or  pencil  so  long 
as  the  writing  produced  is  good.  The  good  teacher  goes  round 
the  writing  class  to  every  scholar  with  a  pencil  in  his  hand ;  he 
calls  attention  to  each  mistake,  forms  in  the  next  line  a  letter  to 
be  traced  over,  desires  his  pupil  to  complete  that  line  only,  and 
to  wait  till  it  has  been  seen  again.  He  notices  each  prevalent 
error  in  form  or  proportion,  and  on  a  ruled  black-board  in 
front  of  the  class  makes  a  good  pattern  of  the  particular 
letter,  and  causes  it  to  be  copied  several  times.  He  knows 
that  if  this  is  not  done  children  copy  their  own  mistakes. 
And  generally  he  relies  more  on  incessant  watchfulness,  on 
care  that  the  same  mistake  shall  not  be  made  twice  over,  and 
on  constant  use  of  model  writing,  than  on  any  theoretical  in- 
struction. 


208  Preparatory  Training. 

The  .well-known  passage  from  Locke  sums  up  af ter  all  the 
Locke  on  best  rules  which  have  to  be  borne  in  mind  in 
Writing.  teaching  this  subject.  He  says 

"  When  a  boy  can  read  English  well,  it  will  be  seasonable  to  enter  him 
in  Writing.  Not  only  children,  but  anybody  else  that  would  do  any- 
thing well  should  never  be  put  upon  too  much  of  it  at  once,  or  be  set  to 
perfect  themselves  in  two  parts  of  an  action  at  the  same  time,  if  they 
can  possibly  be  separated.  When  he  has  learned  to  hold  his  pen  right, 
.  .  .  the  way  to  teach  him  without  much  trouble  is  to  get  a  plate 
graved  with  the  characters  of  such  a  hand  as  you  like  best,  but  you 
must  remember  to  have  them  a  pretty  deal  bigger  than  he  should 
ordinarily  write;  for  every  one  comes  by  degrees  to  write  a  less  hand 
than  he  at  first  was  taught,  but  never  a  bigger.  .  .  Such  a  plate  being 
graved,  let  several  sheets  of  good  writing  paper  be  printed  off  with  red 
ink,  which  he  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  go  over  with  a  good  pen  filled 
with  black  ink,  which  will  quickly  bring  his  hand  to  the  formation  of 
those  characters,  being  at  first  showed  when  to  begin,  and  how  to  form 
every  letter.  And  when  he  can  do  that  well  he  may  exercise  on  fair 
paper,  and  so  may  easily  be  brought  to  write  the  hand  you  desire." 

You  have  here  enforced  the  two  principal  expedients  for 
securing  a  good  hand;  (1)  tracing,  which  is  perhaps  more 
effective  from  the  teacher's  own  pencil-marks  than  from  faint 
engraved  lines;  and  (2)  insisting  on  large  hand,  and  resisting 
for  much  longer  than  is  usual  the  wish  of  scholars  to  write 
small  or  running-hand.  Those  who  begin  small  writing  too 
soon  are  often  careless  about  the  formation  of  single  letters, 
and  form  a  habit  of  scribbling,  which  lasts  them  through  life, 
i'hose  however  who  are  kept  writing  on  a  large  scale  until 
Lhey  can  shape  every  letter  well  may  soon  form  for  themselves 
without  trouble  a  good  and  characteristic  style  of  writing. 
Here,  as  in  so  many  of  the  mechanical  arts,  you  must  not  be 
impatient  at  slowness  in  the  earlier  stages,  and  must  remember 
that  if  accuracy  and  finish  are  first  gained,  rapidity  and  ease 
will  come  afterward;  but  yet  if  these  two  last  are  sought  for 
themselves,  or  too  early,  the  first  will  never  come  at  all. 
Here  at  least  it  is  true  that  "  La  gradation  ct  la  repetition, 
sagemeut  cntendues,  sont  1'amc  de  rcnseignemcnt." 


Drawing  and   Vocal  Music.  209 

It  docs  not  consist  with  my  present   plan  to  comment  on 
the  two  other  chief  instruments  of  Sense- training    D 
which  fall  within  the  province  of  a  school  course,    and  Vocal 
Nor  do  I  feel  competent  to  offer  any  practical 
rules  for  the  teaching  of  either  Drawing  or  Vocal  Music.    But 
I  have  a  strong  conviction  that  both  should  form  integral  parts 
of  every  school  course,  and  should  be  taught  to  every  scholar. 
The  claims  of  Music,  both  in  training  the  voice  and  in  giving 
cheerfulness  to  the  school-life,  are  incontestable.     And  Draw- 
ing is  not  only  in  a  practical  sense  indispensable  to  the  skilled 
artisan,  and  capable  of  manifold  useful  applications  by  scholars 
of  every  class;  but  its  indirect  effect  on  the  training  of  the 
perceptions,  on  taste,  on  clearness  of  vision  and  firmness  of 
hand,  is  still  more  important  as  an  element  in  a  liberal  educa- 
tion. 

14 


210 


VIII.    THE   STUDY  OF   LANGUAGE. 

THE  study  of  language  has  held  a  high  place  in  most  systems 
Language  of  education.  However  far  we  go  back  in  the 
jSeoftostruc-"  khtory  of  learning,  we  find  that  such  subjects  as 
lion.  grammar  and  rhetoric,  which  concerned  them- 

selves with  the  right  use  and  choice  of  words,  have  always 
formed,  if  not  the  chief,  at  any  rate  a  prominent  feature  in  the 
scheme  of  a  liberal  education.  Indeed  in  the  history  of  our 
own  country  and  in  the  practice  of  our  Universities  and  public 
schools,  linguistic  studies  have  held  a  place  so  conspicuous, 
that  they  have  well-nigh  overshadowed  all  others. 

So  it  may  be  well  to  ask  ourselves  at  the  outset,  Why  should 
The  reasons  we  study  language  at  all?  On  what  reasons  is  the 
for  this.  universal  tradition  in  favor  of  philological  and 

grammatical  studies  founded?  Are  those  reasons  valid?  And 
if  so,  to  what  extent  should  they  be  accepted  and  acted  on, 
having  regard  to  the  just  claims  of  much  new  and  useful 
knowledge  of  another  kind?  Speech  we  know  is  the  one 
characteristic  distinction  of  humanity.  Every  word  which 
Words  the  has  been  invented  is  the  record  of  some  fact  or 
j^^f  of  thought,  and  furnishes  the  means  by  which  facts 
thought.  or  thoughts  can  be  transmitted  to  others.  In  a 
sense,  every  new  word  represents  a  new  conquest  of  civiliza- 
tion, a  distinct  addition  to  the  intellectual  resources  of  the 
world.  Tc^itccarnc  acquainted  withj£aydg.Jn_tnt:i1-  fullsigni- 
ficance,  is  to  jknow  much  about  thethings  they  represenf7"anfl 
about  the  thoughts  which  other  people  have~4iad-- respecting 
tUosc_things.  The  enlargement  of  our  vocabulary,  whether  it 
be  in  English  or  any  other  language,  means  the  enlargement  of 


Extent  and  Variety  of  Vocabulary.        211 

our  range  of  thought  and  the  acquisition  of  new  materials  of 
knowledge. 
Moreover,  the  words  we  use  are  not  merely  the  exponents  of 

notions  and  thoughts  which  have  existed  in  the    A    ,  -    . 

And  the  m- 
minds  of  others;    they  are  the  very  instruments   strumentsof 

with  which  we  think.  We  are  unable  to  conceive  new 
of  any  regular  consecutive  thinking, — any  advance  from  what  is 
known  to  what  is  unknown — except  by  the  agency  of  language. 
Whatever  therefore  gives  precision  and  method  to  our  use  of 
words,  gives  precision  to  our  thoughts.  Language  as  it  has 
been  formed  by  nations,  embodied  in  literature,  and  formulated 
into  grammar,  corresponds  in  its  structure  to  the  evolution  of 
thought  in  man.  Every  grammatical  rule  is,  in  another  form, 
a  rule  of  logic;  every  idiom,  a  representation  of  some  moral 
differentia  or  characteristic  of  the  people  who  have  used  it; 
every  subtle  verbal  distinction  is  a  key  to  some  logical  dis- 
tinction; every  figure  of  speech,  a  symbol  of  some  effort  of  the 
human  imagination  to  overleap  the  boundary  of  the  prosaic 
and  the  actual,  and  to  pass  into  the  infinite  region  beyond; 
every  verbal  ambiguity  is  both  the  effect  and  the  cause  of  men- 
tal confusion.  And  so  the  study  of  language  is  the  study  of 
humanity;  the  forms  of  language  represent  the  forms  of  human 
thought;  the  history  of  language  is  the  history  of  our  race  and 
its  development,  and  great  command  over  the  resources  of 
language  is  only  another  name  for  great  command  over  the 
ideas  and  conceptions  which  make  up  the  wealth  of  our  in- 
tellectual life. 

Mr.  Max  Miiller  estimates  the  total  number  of  English  words 
at  50,000;    he  points  out  that   the  speaking  vo-   Extent  nd 
cabulary  of  an  ordinary  English  citizen,  who  reads   variety  of 
his  newspaper  and  books   from  Mudie's,   does   voc< 
not  extend  beyond  3000  or  4000  words;  that  accurate  thinkers 
and  persons  of  wide  knowledge  probably  use  twice  as  many; 
that  the  Old  Testament  contains  5642  different  words;  that  in 
all  Milton's  works  you  will  find  only  about  8000;    and  that 
Shakespeare,  who  displayed  a  greater  variety  of  expression 


212  The  Study  of  Language. 

than  probably  any  writer  in  any  language,  produced  all  bis 
plays  with  15,000  words.  And  at  the  same  time  he  tells  us 
that  an  uneducated  English  peasant  lives  and  dies  with  a, 
vocabulary  which  scarcely  extends  beyond  300  words.  You 
cannot  reflect  on  a  statement  like  this,  and  on  all  that  it  im- 
plies, without  feeling  convinced  that  all  investigations  into  the 
growth  of  language,  its  structure,  its  history,  and  the  philo- 
sophy and  reason  of  its  grammatical  rules,  must  have  an  im- 
portant bearing  on  the  culture  of  the  understanding,  and  be 
very  fruitful  both  of  useful  knowledge  and  of  mental  exercise. 
It  is  a  shallow  thing  to  say  that  what  the  human  being  wants  is 
a  knowledge  of  things,  and  not  words.  Words  are  things; 
they  embody  facts.  He  who  studies  them  is  studying  much 
more  than  sounds  and  letters.  He  is  gaining  an  insight  into 
the  heart  and  reality  of  the  things  they  represent.  Let  a  battle- 
field or  a  storm  at  sea  be  viewed  by  a  painter,  by  a  poet,  by  a 
sailor,  and  by  an  ordinary  observer; — or  say,  by  a  Frenchman 
and  an  Englishman.  It  will  be  described  differently  by  them 
all.  But  he  who  understands  the  language  of  them  all,  sees  it, 
so  to  speak,  with  several  pairs  of  eyes.  And  he  is  the  richer, 
and  his  mind  is  the  larger  in  consequence. 

Some  such  reasons  as  these  no  doubt  underlie  the  very  general 
assumption  that  a  sound  and  liberal  education  should  pay 
special  regard  to  the  study  of  language.  And  we  in  England 
have  to  deal  with  this  practical  question  in  three  distinct  forms. 
We  teach  (1)  the  languages  of  Greece  and  Rome,  which  are 
familiarly  called  the  classic  languages;  (2)  some  of  the  languages 
of  modern  Europe;  and  (3)  our  own  vernacular  speech.  We 
shall  do  well  to  take  this  opportunity  of  noting  the  special 
reasons  which  justify  each  of  these  kinds  of  teaching.  On  ex- 
amination we  shall  find  that  in  each  we  have  a  very  different 
object  in  view.  There  is,  however,  a  sense  in  which  all  are 
alike  valuable,  and  in  which  their  study  may  be  justified  on 
the  general  grounds  already  indicated. 

But  as  we  all  know,  the  linguistic  and  philological  culture  to 
which  most  value  has  been  attached  is  that  which  is  to  be  gained 


Greek  and  Latin.  213 

in  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek.  We  still  call  the  man  who 
is  familiar  with  these  languages  a  scholar  pwr  Latin  and 
excellence,  and  are  inclined  to  withhold  the  title  Greek- 
from  one  who,  however  learned  in  other  ways,  has  no  acquaint- 
ance with  what  are  called  the  classics.  Now  without  denounc- 
ing this  state  of  opinion  as  a  superstition  as  some  do,  it  may  be 
well  to  ask  ourselves  what  is  the  origin  of  it;  and  how  it  ever 
came  to  pass  that  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages  were  regarded 
as  the  staple  of  all  learning;  almost  the  only  knowledge  worth 
acquiring?  Let  us  look  back — to  a  period  300  years  ago,  the 
time  when  Lyly  wrote  his  Grammar,  when  Ascham  was  teach- 
ing Lady  Jane  Grey  and  Queen  Elizabeth  to  read  Plato,  and 
when  the  most  important  of  our  great  grammar  schools  were 
founded.  If  you  had  in  those  days  asked  Erasmus  or  Sir 
Philip  Sidney  why  Latin  and  Greek  should  hold  this  prominent, 
this  almost  exclusive  rank,  the  reply  would  have  been  very 
easy.  The  books  best  worth  reading  in  the  world  were  written 
in  those  languages.  If  one  wanted  to  see  the  best  models  of 
history,  there  were  Thucydides  and  Livy;  if  he  would  know 
what  dramatic  art  could  be  at  its  highest,  he  must  read  Sopho- 
cles and  Euripides,  or  Plautus  and  Terence.  If  he  would 
learn  geometry,  there  was  Euclid;  rhetoric,  he  must  read  it  in 
Quintillian  or  Aristotle;  moral  philosophy,  in  Plato  or  Cicero. 
"  I  expect  ye,"  wrote  Sir  Matthew  Hale  to  his  grandchildren, 
"  to  be  good  proficients  in  the  Latin  tongue,  that  ye  may  be 
able  to  read,  understand,  and  construe  any  Latin  author,  and  to 
make  true  and  handsome  Latin;  and  though  I  would  have  you 
learn  something  of  Greek,  yet  the  Latin  tongue  is  that  which 
I  most  value,  because  all  learning  is  ever  made  in  that  language." 
Modem  literature  was  only  just  emerging  into  life,  after  the 
long  darkness  of  the  middle  ages;  and  a  certain  flavor  of  bar- 
barism and  rudeness  was  held  to  belong  to  it.  Chaucer  and 
Dante  had  written,  but  it  would  not  have  occurred  to  any 
scholar  of  the  sixteenth  century  to  suppose  that  such  books 
would  repay  critical  analysis  in  the  same  sense  as  Homer  or 
Ovid.  Nearly  all  the  literary  wealth  of  the  world,  as  it  then 


214  The  Study  of  Language. 

was,  was  embodied  in  the  language  of  Greece  or  that  of  ancient 
Rome. 

Another  reason  for  studying  these  languages  was  that  they 
Their  gram-  were  the  only  languages  whose  grammar  had  been 
mar-  formulated  and  reduced  to  a  system.  Each  of 

these  languages  was  nearly  homogeneous,  with  very  few  foreign 
ingredients.  Each  possessed  an  elaborate  system  of  inflections 
and  grammatical  forms;  and  each  had  become  a  dead  language 
— had  ceased  to  be  spoken  popularly,  and  therefore  to  be  sub- 
ject to  the  sort  of  corruption  which  goes  on  in  the  case  of  a 
tongue  freely  used  by  an  unlearned  people.  Both  languages 
therefore  presented  examples  of  organized  and  philosophic 
grammar,  and  a  fixed  literature,  in  which  the  laws  of  gram- 
matical structure  were  well  exemplified  and  could  be  easily 
studied.  On  the  other  hand,  the  languages  of  modern  Europe 
were  heterogeneous,  full  of  anomalies,  subject  to  phonetic  de- 
cay, and  in  a  constant  state  of  fluctuation.  No  attempt  had 
been  made  to  fix  their  forms,  to  find  out  what  grammatical 
laws  were  still  recognizable  in  them,  and  they  therefore  offered 
little  attraction  or  advantage  to  the  student  of  language. 

And  besides  all  this,  Latin,  though  a  dead  language  for 
Purpose  ordinary  colloquial  purposes,  was  an  eminently 
once  served  living  and  vigorous  language  for  many  of  the  pur- 
poses recognized  by  a  scholar.  It  had  been  ac- 
cepted as  the  universal  language  of  the  Western  Church.  It 
was  the  common  medium  of  communication  among  the  eccle- 
siastics and  among  the  scholars  of  Europe.  Not  only  Bede  and 
the  earlier  chroniclers,  but  Sir  T.  More,  Buchanan,  Bacon, 
Hobbes,  Milton,  and  Newton  found  Latin  the  most  appropriate 
channel  for  communicating  their  thoughts  both  to  foreign 
scholars  and  to  the  educated  of  their  own  countrymen. 

It  is  manifest  that  some  of  these  reasons  have  either  ceased  to 
No  longer  exist  altogether,  or  have  receded  very  much  as  to 
served.  their  relative  importance.  It  cannot  now  be  said 

that  all  the  wisest  and  fairest  productions  of  the  human  intel- 
lect are  to  be  found  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages.  A  rich 


Past  and  Present  Uses  of  Latin.  215 

modern  literature  has  sprung  up.  Many  entirely  new  studies 
have  come  into  existence.  There  is  the  science  of  historic 
criticism;  there  are  new  developments  of  mathematical  science; 
there  is  tbe  whole  of  the  wonderful  field  of  physical  investiga- 
tion; the  modern  languages,  including  our  own,  have  become 
the  subjects  of  philological  and  critical  inquiry;  and  mean- 
while the  duration  of  human  life  has  not  been  materially  ex- 
tended. It  is  evident,  when  we  compare  the  books  which  are 
worth  reading,  and  the  subjects  which  can  be  studied  to-day, 
with  the  books  and  the  knowledge  which  were  accessible  in 
the  days  of  Elizabeth,  that  the  place  occupied  by  Greek  and 
Lathi  literature,  however  honorable,  is  relatively  far  less  im- 
portant than  it  was.  This  is  now  recognized  by  the  ancient 
Universities  themsel  ves.  The  institution  of  the  Law  and  Modern 
History  schools  at  Oxford,  and  of  the  Natural  Science  Tripos 
and  the  Moral  Science  Tripos  at  Cambridge,  are  practical  ad- 
missions that  the  word  "learning"  must  be  extended  in  its 
meaning;  and  that,  e.g.,  an  accomplished  student  of  Natural 
Science,  who  knows  little  or  no  Greek,  is  as  much  entitled  to 
rank  as  a  scholar  and  to  receive  honorable  recognition  from  the 
University,  as  a  good  Greek  scholar  who  knows  little  or  nothing 
of  Natural  Science. 
And  it  is  important  also  to  remember  that  Latin  has  ceased 

to  serve  the  purpose  it  once  fulfilled  of  a  common  _ 

.  ...  Latin  no 

medium  of  communication  among  scholars.     A   longer  the 

modern  Newton  would  not  write  his  Principia  in   TOmmunlca- 

Latin.     Our  Sovereigns  have  no  longer,  as  Crom-  tion  between 
..  ,     ,       T    ,.  ,,  learned  men. 

well  had,  a  Latin  secretary.     Nor  would  any  con- 
temporary of  ours  who  wished  to  vindicate  the  political  action 
of  the  English  people  in  the  eyes  of  foreign  nations  carry  on  a 
controversy  in  the  language  employed  by  Milton  and  Salma- 
sius.     The  occasions  on  which  any  educated  Eng-    or  to  any 

lishman,  who  is  not  a  College  tutor,  or  who  does   great  extent 

an  instru- 
not  take  up  learning  as  a  profession,  is  called  on   ment  of 

to  write  in  Latin  are  exceedingly  rare.     Few  even   tnou8nt- 
of  the  most  scholarly  men  in  England  are  accustomed  to  think 


216  The,  Study  of  Language. 

in  Latin,  or  to  use  it  often  as  a  vehicle  for  expression.  They 
read  Latin  books  with  more  or  less  ease  ;  they  catch  the  flavor 
of  the  Augustan  literature  and  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  world, 
but  the  language  which  Tully  and  Horace  spoke  is  no  longer 
to  them  an  instrument  of  thought. 

Nevertheless  there  is  still  a  lingering  and  very  potent  tradi- 
Yet  it  is  still  ^on>  stronger  even  in  our  Grammar  Schools  than 
uTour'hTh-  ia  the  Universities  themselves,  that  Latin  and 
er  instruc-  Greek  are  in  some  way  the  staple  of  a  gentleman's 
education  ;  that  he  who  has  them  and  nothing  else 
can  claim  to  be  called  a  scholar,  and  that  he  who  has  much 
other  culture,  and  varied  knowledge  in  other  departments,  and 
who  has  had  no  classical  training,  is  an  inferior  being.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  account  for  this  sentiment.  The  men  who  make 
the  public  opinion  of  the  country  on  these  matters  are  for  the 
most  part  those  whose  early  education  was  carried  out  on  this 
theory.  One  naturally  values  that  which  one  knows  best. 
Down  deep  in  the  mind  of  the  successful  statesman,  the  clergy- 
man, or  man  of  letters,  who  looks  back  on  his  years  of  toil 
over  the  Latin  Accidence  and  the  Greek  Lexicon  there  is  the 
half-expressed  conviction,  "The  system  must  have  been  a  good 
one  because  it  produced  ine."  It  is  very  difficult  for  a  man  in 
later  life  to  divest  his  mind  of  all  the  associations  which  give  a 
certain  dignity  to  the  thought  of  a  classical  education,  or  to  ask 
himself  what  might  have  been  done  with  his  faculties  if  they 
had  been  otherwise  trained.  Now  and  then  a  man  has  the 
boldness  to  put  this  question  to  himself,  and  the  answer  is  not 
always  satisfactory.  Listen  to  Wordsworth's  reminiscences  of 
his  College  days.  I  was,  he  says, 

"  Misled  in  estimating  words,  not  only 
By  common  inexperience  of  youth 
But  by  the  trade  m  classic  niceties, 
The  dangerous  craft  of  culling  term  and  phrase 
From  languages  that  want  the  living  voice 
To  carry  meaning  to  the  natural  heart; 
To  tell  us  what  is  passion,  what  is  truth, 
What  reason,  what  simplicity,  what  sense." 

— The  Prelude. 


Classical  Schools.  217 

The  testimony  accumulated  by  the  Schools  Inquiry  Commis- 
sion of  1866  was  conclusive  not  only  as  to  the  prev-  And  often 

alence  in  the  Grammar  Schools  of  a  belief  in  the   unfruitful 
v  T    A-          j  /~i       i  c    of  result, 

supreme  efficacy  of  Latin  and  Greek  as  means  of 

mental  training,  but  also  as  to  the  worthlessness  of  much  of  the 
result,  and  the  heavy  price  we  have  paid  in  England  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  Grammar  School  theory.  It  constantly  hap- 
pened to  me  when  engaged  as  Assistant  Commissioner  on  that 
inquiry  to  find  an  ancient  Grammar  School  with  50  boys,  of 
Avhom  three  fourths  had  begun  the  Latin  Grammar,  about  ten 
were  learning  the  delectus,  some  four  or  five  in  the  highest 
class  of  the  school  were  translating  Caesar,  and  one  or  at  most 
two  at  the  head  of  the  School  were  reading  Virgil  and  elemen- 
tary Greek,  and  gave  some  promise  that  they  might  perhaps  go 
to  the  University.  And  an  occasional  success. in  preparing  a 
boy  for  matriculation  encouraged  the  master  and  trustees  in 
describing  this  as  a  thoroughly  classical  school,  and  caused 
them  to  forget  that  at  least  48  out  of  the  50  would  never  go  to 
the  University,  and  would  never  learn  enough  of  Latin  or  of 
Greek  to  be  able  to  read  even  a  simple  author.  Meanwhile  for 
the  sake  of  the  "Classics"  which  had  absorbed  all  their  time 
they  had  been  allowed  to  remain  wholly  ignorant  of  mathe- 
matics, they  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  physical  science,  of 
French  or  German,  or  of  the  structure  of  their  own  language  : 
they  wrote,  and  even  spelt,  badly,  and  were  often  in  point  of 
general  knowledge  inferior  to  the  children  of  a  National 
School. 

This  state  of  things  is  being  slowly  mended  ;  and  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that,  ere  long,  all  schools  of  this  kind  will  have 
been  modernized  and  improved.  Other  subjects  are  asserting 
their  right  to  recognition  ;  and  perhaps  the  danger  is  that  in  the 
wholesome  reaction  against  a  state  of  opinion  which  gave  to 
Latin  and  Greek  an  exclusive  and  hurtful  predominance  in  a 
school  course,  we  may  come  to  make  exactly  the  opposite  mis- 
take of  unduly  depreciating  them.  Meanwhile  it  is  worth 
while  for  us  to  make  up  our  minds  on  this  question.  What — 


218  The  Study  of  Language. 

having  regard  to  the  present  boundaries  of  human  knowledge 
and  to  the  claims  of  modern  life — is  the  right  place  for  the 
ancient  languages  to  hold,  in  a  system  of  liberal  education  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  appears  to  me  to  depend  entirely 
The  future  on  the  considerations  which  I  tried  to  insist  on  in 
and  Gree^in1  tlie  second  lecture,  and  particularly  on  the  length 
schools.  of  time  which  the  student  will  probably  devote  to 

his  course  of  instruction.  You  should  keep  in  view  roughly 
the  three  classes  of  learners — those  who  are  likely  to  enter  the 
Universities,  and  to  aim  at  something  like  finished  scholarship  ; 
those  whose  course  of  instruction  will  probably  not  be  pro- 
longed beyond  16  or  17  and  who  may  be  presumed  to  enter 
professions  soon  after  ;  and  those  who  only  receive  primary  in 
struction  ending  at  13  or  14.  Latin  has  indeed  its  relations  to 
all  three.  But  it  is  not  Latin  for  the  same  purpose,  or  to  be 
taught  by  the  same  methods.  In  an  interesting  and  suggestive 
paper  by  Professor  Ramsay,  in  Macmillan's  Magazine,  you  will 
find  that  he  would  treat  all  these  classes  alike.  Latin,  he  says, 
ought  to  be  taught  from  the  first  as  a  living  language.  You 
are  to  aim  at  the  power  of  varied  expression  and  spontaneous 
thought  by  the  help  of  Latin ;  you  must  learn  the  grammar 
very  thoroughly,  compose  and  recompose  idiomatic  phrases, 
long  before  you  attempt  to  read  an  author.  And  all  this  he 
would  seem  to  recommend  alike  for  the  boy  who  means  to 
make  scholarship  the  business  of  his  life,  and  for  the  children 
of  the  Burgh  and  parish  schools.  But  surely  the  reasons 
which  justify  the  learning  of  Latin  are  so  different  in  the  dif- 
ferent cases,  that  the  same  methods  are  not  applicable  to  them 
all. 

We  may  hope  that  means  will  always  be  found  for  encourag- 
(l)  in  High  ing  genuine  Greek  and  Latin  scholarship  in  Eng- 
Schools.  land.  Considering  the  part  which  has  been  play- 

ed by  the  ancient  literature  in  forming  the  intellectual  character 
of  Europe,  considering  that  nearly  the  whole  of  the  best  books 
which  have  been  written  in  English  are  saturated  through  and 
through  with  allusions  and  modes  of  thought  drawn  conscious- 


Latin  in  Secondary  or  Middle  Schools.     219 

ly  or  unconsciously  from  classical  sources;  considering  too  the 
admitted  value,  the  literary  and  artistic  finish  of  the  best  books 
which  have  come  down  to  us,  it  is  evident  that  we  shall  sus- 
tain a  great  loss  if  ever  this  mine  of  wealth  ceases  to  be  ex- 
plored or  if  we  come  to  disregard  it.  And  we  may  hope  too 
that  there  will  always  be  some  students  in  England  so  devoted 
to  the  study  of  the  ancient  literature,  that  they  will  not  neglect 
what  may  be  called  the  niceties  and  elegancies,  the  refinements 
and  luxuries  of  Greek  and  Latin  scholarship.  Even  for  these 
it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  Latin  is  ever  likely  to  be  used, 
as  Professor  Ramsay  would  have  it,  as  a  medium  for  free  ex- 
pression, or  intellectual  intercourse.  It  is  only  in  a  very  limited 
sense  that,  even  for  them,  Latin  ought  to  be  regarded  as  a  liv- 
ing language.  But  we  may  admit  that  for  them  the  training 
in  versification  and  in  Greek  and  Latin  composition,  to  which 
so  many  years  were  devoted  in  the  old  grammar  schools,  has  a 
meaning  and  a  value.  And  hi  the  sixth  form  of  a  public 
school,  and  in  the  case  of  all  who  are  likely  to  reach  it  and  to 
proceed  to  the  Universities,  let  us  by  all  means  accept  the 
University  standard  and  work  towards  it.  It  is  not  within  my 
province  now  to  criticise  that  standard,  or  to  say  how  you  are 
to  attain  it.  But  I  will  ask  you  to  consider  the  case  of  those  to 
whom  this  ideal  is  unattainable,  and  to  inquire  what  part  the 
study  of  Latin  ought  to  play  in  their  education. 

For  those  scholars  who,  when  at  the  University,  are  likely  to 
select  mathematics,  natural  science,  or  modern  (2)  in  Mod- 
subjects  as  their  special  subjects,  and  for  the  far  |™'f  and°Mld- 
larger  number  who  are  never  likely  to  proceed  to  d*6  Schools, 
the  University,  but  who  will  enter  professional  or  other  active 
life  at  16  or  17,  the  attempt  to  teach  versification  and  the  nice- 
ties of  scholarship,  or  even  to  teach  Greek  at  all,  generally 
proves  to  be  a  mistake,  for  the  reasons  which  have  been  already 
given,  of  which  the  chief  is  that  the  studies  are  not  carried  on 
to  the  fruit-bearing  stage.  Yet  for  such  pupils,  Latin  has  a 
real  value.  It  can  do  much  for  them  if  the  purpose  with  which 
it  should  be  taught  is  carefully  defined  and  kept  in  view. 


220  The  Study  of  Language. 

The  substantial  difference  in  the  teaching  of  Latin  to  such 
Oblectsto  pupils  is  that  here  you  want  them  to  read  the 
be  kept  in  language,  but  not  to  write  it.  You  wish  to  famil- 
iarize them  with  the  works  of  a  few  of  the  easier 
and  more  valuable  Latin  authors,  and  to  understand  their  con- 
tents. And  besides,  and  even  above  this,  you  teach  Latin  to 
this  class  of  pupils;  (1)  because  in  it  you  find  the  best  practical 
illustration  of  the  science  of  grammar  and  the  laws  and  struc- 
ture of  language  generally;  (2)  because  it  furnishes  an  effective 
instrument  for  examining  the  history,  formation,  affinities,  and 
development  of  the  English  language,  and  (3)  because  it  helps 
to  explain  much  that  would  otherwise  be  obscure  in  our 
national  literature,  and  to  make  intelligible  the  relation  in  which 
this  literature  stands  to  that  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

Now  if  these  be  the  main  objects  contemplated,  it  will  follow 
How  to  be  that  much  of  the  most  laborious  part  of  the  ortho- 
attained.  (jox  Latm  teaching  in  the  grammar  and  public 
schools  becomes,  if  not  superfluous,  of  very  secondary  import- 
ance. These  objects  are  attainable,  within  a  very  reasonable 
amount  of  time  and  without  encroaching  on  the  domain  of  other 
learning.  And  when  it  is  once  understood  that  they  are  worth 
attaining,  it  becomes  evident  that  they  are  just  as  important  in 
schools  for  girls  as  in  those  for  boys.  The  tacit  assumption  in 
our  old  school  plans  that  somehow  Latin  was  a  masculine  and 
French  a  feminine  study,  is  wholly  indefensible.  Both  lan- 
guages ought  to  be  taught  as  essential  parts  of  every  school 
course  which  is  likely  to  be  prolonged  to  the  age  of  sixteen, 
and  unless  it  is  likely  to  be  prolonged  beyond  that  age,  more 
than  these  two  languages  ought  not  to  be  attempted. 

And  bearing  in  mind  that  the  main  reason  for  teaching  Latin 

is  because  of  its  reflex  action  on  the  understanding 

comparison      of  English,  it  is  well  from  the  first  to  teach  the  two 

analogous  lth   languages  together.    A  few  elementary  lessons  on 

English  the  necessary  parts  of  an  English  sentence,  and  on 

the  classification  of  English  words,  should  precede 

the  introduction  of  a  pupil  to  the  Latin  grammar;  but  after  such 


Comparison  of  Latin  and  English  Forms.   221 

lessons  have  been  well  understood,  it  seems  to  me  desirable  to 
teach  the  two  grammars  together,  comparing  at  every  step 
English  constructions  and  idioms  with  those  of  Latin.  After 
all  we  must  remember  that  the  knowledge  of  grammar  as  a 
science  is  to  be  had,  not  from  the  study  of  any  one  language  per 
se,  but  from  the  comparison  and  synthesis  of  two  or  more  lan- 
guages. It  is  not  till  we  have  seen  the  differences  and  the  resem- 
blances in  the  structure  of  two  distinct  grammars,  that  we  can 
get  the  least  perception  of  the  difference  between  those  princi- 
ples which  are  accidental  or  distinctive  of  particular  tongues, 
and  those  which  are  fundamental  and  common  to  all  organized 
languages  alike. 

For  instance,  how  much  clearer  the  nature  of  the  difference 
between  Personal  and  Demonstrative  pronouns  will  be,  if  by 
some  such  table  as  that  which  follows,  you  point  out  (a)  that 
our  own  language  once  recognized  this  distinction  as  clearly  as 
the  Latin,  (b)  that  we  have  retained  in  modern  use  only  those 
forms  which  are  printed  in  capitals,  and  («)  that  in  the  third 
person  we  have  lost  the  plural  forms  of  the  Personal  pronoun, 
and  also  most  of  the  singular  forms  of  the  Demonstrative,  and 
have  pieced  together  the  fragments,  so  as  to  make  what  we  now 
call  one  pronoun,  of  which  lie,  s7te,  and  it  are  the  singular,  and 
they  and  their  the  plural  forms. 


ENGLISH  AND  LATIN  PRONOUNS. 

FIRST  PERSON. — 

Singular.  Dual.  Plural. 

Nominative              Ic  Ego  Wit  WE            Nos 

Genitive                  MIN  Met  Uncer  URE          Nottri 

Dative                       ME  Mihi  Unc  Us             Nobis 

Accusative               ME  Me  Unc  Us             N6s 

SECOND  PERSON. — 

Singular.  Dual.  Plural. 

Nominative             THU  Tu  Git  GE            Vos 

Genitive                   THIN  Tui  Incer  KOWER      Vextri 

Dative                       THK  7V  Inc  Eow          Vobis 

Accusative               THE  Te  Inc  Eow          Vos 


222 

The 

Study  of 

Language. 

THIRD 

PERSON 

_ 

Nom. 
Gen. 
Dat. 
Accus. 

Masculine. 
HE        Is 
His       Ejus 
HIM       Ei 
Hiue     Eum 

Singular. 
Feminine. 
Heo       Ea 
HIR       Ejus 
HIR       Ei 
Hi         Earn 

Neuter. 
HIT       Id 
His        Ejus 
Him      Ei 
HIT       Id 

Plural. 
All  genders. 
Hi         li 
Heora  Eorum 
Heom   lis 
Hi         Eos 

THIRD  PERSON,  DEMONSTRATIVE— 


Singular. 

Plural. 

Masculine. 

Feminine. 

Neuter.              All  genders. 

Nom. 

Se 

Ille 

SEO 

Ilia 

TH.ET 

Illud 

THA 

Illi 

Gen. 

Thaes 

lllius 

Thsere 

lllius 

Thses 

lllius 

THARA 

Illorum 

Dat. 

Tham 

Illi 

Thsere 

Illi 

Tham 

Illi 

THAM 

Illis 

Accus. 

Thone 

Ilium 

Tha 

Ilium 

Thaet 

Illud 

THA 

Illos 

Ablative  Thy 

Illo 

Thsere 

Hid 

Thy 

Illo 

THAM 

Illis 

INTERROGATIVE— 


Masculine  and  Feminine. 


Nominative 

Genitive 

Dative 

Accusative 

Ablative 


HWA 

HWCES 

HWAM 

Hwone 

Hwi 


Neuter. 

HWCET 

HWCES 

Hwam 

HWCET 

Hwi 


It  is  important  that  lessons  on  grammar  and  on  simple  trans- 
By  connect-  lation  should  proceed  pan  passu  from  the  first, 
ing  transla-  This  is  now  recognized  by  all  the  best  writers  of 

tion  with 

grammar         elementary  Latin  books;  but  the  principle  though 

fromtheflret.   jmportant  is  often  ]ost  s\s^t  Of  i,y  teachers.    They 

say,  and  quite  truly,  "  We  must  have  our  scholars  well 
grounded  in  the  grammar  first  of  all."  But  their  notion  of 
grounding  consists  in  requiring  a  great  deal  of  the  grammar  to 
be  learned  by  heart,  before  it  is  understood  or  seen  in  any 
practical  application  to  the  actual  construction  of  sentences. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  study  is  felt  to  be  so  dry  and  re- 
pulsive to  school-boys. 

We  repel  a  scholar  by  forcing  him  to  learn  at  the  beginning 
the  whole  list  of  inflections  and  conjugations,  containing  many 
form  and  distinctions  of  which  he  sees  neither  the  meaning  nor 
the  use,  and  which  he  will  not  want  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
All  such  synopses  are  useful  and  indeed  indispensable;  but  they 


Learning  of  Grammar  by  Heart.          223 

should  be  reserved  for  a  later  period  of  the  study  when  they 
will  serve  to  collect  and  classify  the  knowledge  which  has  been 
gradually  acquired.  With  this  view  many  good  teachers  ob- 
ject even  to  give  the  whole  set  of  inflections  in  a  noun  to  be 
learned  by  heart;  but  prefer  to  give  a  separate  lesson  on  the 
genitive,  or  the  accusative,  to  point  out  its  various  modifications 
and  its  exact  meaning,  and  then  to  give  a  number  of  illustrative 
examples  at  once,  so  that  theory  and  practice  should  go  to- 
gether from  the  first.  Consider  the  difference  in  importance, 
and  in  immediate  usefulness,  between  the  accusative  and  the 
vocative  case,  consider  how  much  more  Important  the  second 
declension  is  than  the  fourth,  and  you  will  then  see  how  absurd 
is  the  method  which  obliges  a  boy  to  commit  all  these  things  to 
memory  together  at  the  same  stage  of  his  career.  It  is  shock- 
ing to  think  of  the  heedless  and  unscientific  use  which  many 
teachers  have  made  of  the  mere  verbal  memory  in  treating  this 
subject,  keeping  boys  two  or  three  years  learning  a  great  many 
bare  abstractions,  before  allowing  them  to  make  any  practical 
use  of  their  knowledge  or  read  a  single  line.  It  needs  to  be 
constantly  repeated  that  memory  is  a  faculty  of  association 
mainly,  and  that  words  and  names  without  useful  associations 
are  of  no  value,  and  are  soon  rejected  by  a  healthy  intelligence. 

The  portion  of  the  Latin  grammar  which,  for   Ho 
the  purpose  now  in  view,  requires  to  be  thus 
gradually  learned  by  heart  is  small,  and  may  be   learned  by 
comprised  in  a  very  few  pages.    It  may  consist  of:   hcart- 

(1)  The  five  declensions,  including  of  course  all  adjectives 
and  participles.    Here  of  course  you  will  not  separate  nouns 
from  adjectives,  and  so  go  over  the  same  forms  twice.     You 
will  show  from  the  first  the  identity  of  the  inflections  in  the 
''two. 

(2)  The  rules  for  gender,  with  one  or  two  of  the  most  notable 
exceptions. 

(3)  The  four  conjugations  of  verbs  active  and  passive,  with 
the  substantive  verb  esse. 

(4)  The  irregular  verbs  violo,  co,  nolo,  malo,  and  possum. 


224  The  Study  of  Language. 

(5)  Three  or  four  of  the  leading  rules  of  syntax,  and  these 
only,  when  the  time  comes  for  applying  them. 

The  simple  rule  of  concord,  between  nominative  and  verb,' 
and  between  noun  and  adjective,  will  come  very  early.  Do 
not  attempt  to  disjoin  syntax  and  accidence  as  if  syntax  were 
an  advanced  part  of  the  study. 

And  from  the  first,  as  sentences  are  formed,  I  would  call  at- 
tention to  the  corresponding  form  in  English,  or  to  the  absence 
in  English  of  some  inflection  which  is  present  in  Latin,  and  to 
the  expedients  by  which  in  our  language  we  supply  the  lack  of 
a  more  complete  accidence  and  inflection. 

Many  of  the  best  teachers  adopt  the  crude-form  system  of 
The  crude-  teaching  the  Latin  and  Greek  accidence.  They 
form  system,  ^jj  attention  to  the  stem  of  the  word— to  that  part 
which  is  common  to  all  forms,  and  is  independent  of  the  in- 
flection, and  they  show  how  this  stem  is  clothed  with  one  garb 
after  another,  according  to  the  use  which  has  to  be  made  of  it. 
Such  teachers  would  not  speak  of  rex  as  the  root  for  king,  but 
reg,  and  would  show  how  this  root  was  disguised  in  the  nomi- 
native case;  nor  porto,  portare,  to  carry,  but  port;  nor  TtovS  for 
foot  but  TtoS;  nor  Ttpd66ca  but  it  pay. 

"  Ancient  languages,"  said  Lord  Bacon,  "  were  more  full  of 
declensions,  cases,  conjugations,  tenses,  and  the  like:  the  mod- 
ern commonly  destitute  of  these  do  loosely  deliver  themselves 
in  many  expressions  by  prepositions  and  auxiliary  verbs:  may 
it  not  be  conjectured  that  the  wits  of  former  times  were  far 
more  acute  and  subtle  than  ours  are?" 

We  must  not  I  think  accept  this  inference  too  readily.  For 
indeed  the  fact  of  the  decay  of  inflections  and  of  the  substitu- 
tion for  them  of  prepositions  and  aiixiliaries,  may  be  accounted 
for  on  many  other  hypotheses  than  that  of  a  decline  in  human 
acuteness,  or  in  intellectual  exactitude.  Yet  it  is  plain  that  by 
pointing  out  at  each  stage  in  learning  the  Latin  grammar  the 
difference  between  a  given  modification  in  the  meaning  of  a 
word  as  expressed,  say  by  an  ablative  in  Latin,  and  by  a  pre- 
position in  English;  by  a  future  tense  in  Latin,  and  by  the 


Early  Exercise  in  Translation.  225 

word  shall  or  will  in  English;  you  are  giving  to  the  pupil  a 
truer  notion  of  the  functions  of  grammar  and  the  extent  of  its 
province  than  if  you  taught  either  of  these  forms  by  itself. 

As  to  the  vocabulary,  I  think  we  often  put  needless  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  by  requiring  every  word  to  be  sepa-  The  Vo- 
rately  hunted  out  in  a  dictionary.  This  is  a  very  cabulary. 
slow  and  wearisome  process,  and  after  all  there  is  no  particular 
value  in  it.  It  does  nothing  to  encourage  accuracy,  and  it 
certainly  does  not  help  to  give  any  special  love  for  the  act  of 
research.  So  in  all  early  exercises  it  is  well  to  bring  the  voca- 
bulary specially  needed  in  those  exercises  close  under  the  eye 
of  the  learner  so  that  he  has  not  far  to  look  for  them.  Later 
of  course  it  is  very  desirable  that  he  should  know  how  to  con- 
sult a  dictionary,  and  should  often  use  it;  but  if  he  has  to  make 
this  reference  in  more,  say,  than  one  in  ten  of  the  words  which 
occur  in  his  lesson  you  are  placing  a  needless  impediment  in 
the  way  of  his  progress. 

Again,  it  is  desirable  that  as  soon  as  possible  you  escape  from 
the  little   graduated   exercises   in  what  may  be 
called  manufactured  Latin;  —  the  sort  of  Arnoldian 


exercise  in  which  "  Balbus  strikes  the  head  of  the  sentences, 
father  of  the  maiden;"  —  and  get  to  real  sentences,  manufac- 
little  narratives  which  have  an  interest  of  their 


own,  and  which  are  taken  from  good  authors. 
Of  course  these  should  be  so  graduated,  that  the  difficulties  do 
not  come  all  at  once.  But  it  is  better  to  deal  with  a  short  pas- 
sage, or  a  verse  of  an  ode,  which  has  a  prettiness  and  interest  of 
its  own,  even  though  there  are  one  or  two  phrases  in  it  a  little 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  learner's  present  grammatical  know- 
ledge, than  to  keep  him  too  long  on  bald  and  meaningless  sen- 
tences, merely  because  they  illustrate  a  particular  kind  of 
grammar  rule. 

After  a  little  progress  has  been  made,  a  teacher  may  wisely 

select  an  easy  ode  of  Horace,  some  passages  from  Ovid;  the 

sentences  from  Cresar  descriptive  of  his  visit  to  Britain;  a  few 

of  the  happier  examples  of  characterization  from  the  Catiline  of 

15 


226  The  Study  of  Language. 

Sallust,  or  some  eloquent  sentences  from  an  oration  of  Cicero; 
and  will  make  these  first  of  all  the  subject  of  thorough  gram- 
matical investigation,  postponing,  however,  any  special  difficul- 
ties and  promising  to  recur  to  them  hereafter.  Then  he  will 
give  a  full  explanation  of  the  meaning,  circumstances,  and  pur- 
pose of  the  extract,  and  finally  after  it  has  been  translated  care- 
fully, will  cause  it  to  be  learned  by  heart.  This  was  Jacotot's 
method.  Tout  est  dans  tout.  He  required  that  some  one  inter- 
esting passage  should  be  dealt  with  exhaustively,  and  should 
be  made  not  only  a  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  a  passage 
might  be  investigated,  but  a  centre  round  which  grammatical 
knowledge  might  cluster,  and  to  which  all  new  acquisitions 
might  be  referred  by  way  of  comparison  or  contrast.  Nothing 
is  more  depressing  and  unsatisfactory  than  to  arrange  all  au- 
thors in  the  order  of  their  supposed  difficulty,  and  to  say,  e.g. 
that  one  must  spend  so  many  months  over  Eutropius,  and  then 
another  term  on  Caesar,  and  afterwards  proceed  to  Ovid  and  to 
Virgil,  as  if  these  books  represented  so  many  advanced  rules  in 
Arithmetic.  A  child  properly  taught  Latin  with  the  object  I 
have  indicated,  should  above  all  things  be  interested  and  made 
from  the  first  to  feel  that  the  Latin  language  is  like  his  own  in 
the  variety  and  attractiveness  of  its  contents,  and  not  a  series  of 
exercises  in  grammar  and  vocabulary  only. 
For  after  all,  one  of  your  chief  aims  in  teaching  language  at 

L-'terature        a^  's  to  ma^e  t^c  scn°lar  enjoy  literature,  and  get 
should  come     an  enlarged  acquaintance  with  the  meanings  of 
words.     The  sooner  we  can  bend  our  teaching 
towards  these  particular  purposes  the  better. 

One  way  of  doing  this  will  be  to  study  some  English  classic 
pari  passu  with  a  Latin  book  or  extract  of  a  cognate  kind. 
We  have  spoken  of  the  simultaneous  study  of  Latin  and  Eng- 
lish Grammar.  There  is  an  equally  good  reason  for  the  simul- 
taneous reading  of  Latin  and  English  literature.  Side  by  side 
with  the  Latin  lessons,  or  alternating  with  them,  I  would  take 
good  sentences  from  Classical  English  books  and  treat  them  in 
the  same  way.  In  the  one  lesson  you  will  note  down  all  Latin 


Connection  of  Latin  and  English  Lessons.  227 

words  which  have  supplied  English  derivatives,  in  the  other  all 
English  words  which  have  a  Latin  origin.  You  will  make  a 
list  of  them,  illustrate  their  meaning  and  use,  the  way  in  which 
some  portions  of  the  original  meaning  have  disappeared,  and 
other  shades  or  varieties  of  signification  have  become  attached 
to  the  words  since  their  introduction  into  English.  By  requir- 
ing these  words  to  be  collected  in  a  special  list  you  will  at  the 
same  time  be  increasing  your  pupil's  store  of  Latin  words  and 
will  make  him  more  accurately  acquainted  with  the  history  and 
significance  of  words  in  his  own  language.  Constant  care 
should  also  be  taken  to  secure  that  resemblances  or  differences 
in  the  idiom  and  structure  of  the  two  languages  should  be 
clearly  apprehended,  and  free  use  should  be  made  of  note-books 
in  order  to  promote  thoroughness  and  accuracy.  And  as  the  pu- 
pil becomes  further  advanced,  it  is  well  to  take  up  the  parallel 
and  simultaneous  study  of  portions  of  an  ancient  and  a  modern 
author,  e.g.  with  the  Ars  Poetica  of  Horace  Pope's  Essay  on 
Criticism  or  Byron's  Hints  from  Horace  might  be  read;  with  a 
Satire  of  Juvenal,  Johnson's  imitation  or  some  well-chosen 
passage  from  Drydcn;  with  an  oration  of  Cicero,  a  famous 
speech  of  Burke  or  Macaulay;  with  one  of  the  Georgics  of 
Virgil,  an  extract  from  Thomson  or  Cowper  descriptive  of 
rural  life;  with  a  passage  from  Livyor  Tacitus,  another  pas- 
sage from  Gibbon  or  Froude. 

This  is  a  large  subject,  and  no  one  of  you  can  be  more  con- 
scious than  I  am  of  the  inadequacy  of  such  few  hints  as  can 
be  given  on  it  in  a  short  lecture.  Those  of  you  who  are  en- 
gaged in  teaching  Latin  or  Greek,  will  find  it  necessary  to 
read  much  and  to  think  more,  before  you  will  attain  a  satis- 
factory course  of  procedure.  By  far  the  wisest  and  most  sug- 
gestive of  old  books  on  the  methods  of  teaching  is  Roger  As- 
cham's  Scholemaster ,  which  explains  fully  his  system  of  teach- 
ing by  translation  and  re-translation.  He  would  go  through  a 
Latin  passage  and  translate  it  into  English,  writing  the  transla- 
tion down  carefully;  then  after  an  interval  of  an  hour  or  two, 


228  The  Study  of  Language. 

he  would  give  the  scholar  those  English  sentences  for  re-trans- 
lation into  Latin,  and  as  he  well  shows,  whether  this  be  done 
by  memory  or  by  invention  it  is  almost  equally  useful.  I 
strongly  advise  also  the  reading  of  Mr.  Quick's  admirable  book 
on  Educational  Reformers,  for  that  work  not  only  summarizes 
well  the  main  excellencies  of  Ascham's  method,  but  it  also 
gives  an  account  of  the  methods  of  teaching  Latin  recom- 
mended by  Milton,  by  Comenius,  by  Locke,  and  by  others — 
subjects  which  it  is  beyond  my  province  to  discuss  here.  Nor 
ought  I  to  omit  the  mention  of  Mr.  Henry  Sidgwick's  thought- 
ful paper  in  the  Essays  on  a  Liberal  Education,  and  of  Mr. 
D'Arcy  Thompson's  Day-dreams  of  a  ScJioolmaster,  which  is 
full  of  practical  suggestion  as  to  rational  and  simple  means  of 
teaching  grammar. 

In  what  I  have  said  hitherto  we  have  been  chiefly  concerned 
The  place  of  with  the  use  which  should  be  made  of  Latin  in 
pfhnary*  secondary  schools.  And  this,  as  we  have  seen, 
School.  does  not  aim  at  making  what  are  called  "  schol- 

ars," nor  at  using  Latin  as  a  vehicle  for  the  expression  of  the 
learner's  own  thoughts,  but  mainly  at  enabling  him  to  under- 
stand the  laws  of  language,  and  especially  of  his  own  lan- 
guage, better.  Now  what  is  the  place,  if  any,  which  Latin 
should  hold  in  a  Primary  school  or  in  one  whose  course  will 
probably  terminate  at  14? 

There  has  been  much  contention  as  to  the  expediency  of  in- 
cluding in  the  Schedule  of  additional  "  Specific  Subjects," 
attached  to  the  Code  of  the  Education  Department,  lessons  on 
the  elements  of  Latin  Grammar.  By  some  this  is  defended  on 
the  grounds  that  such  knowledge  will  be  serviceable  to  those 
promising  scholars  whom  it  may  be  worth  while  to  encourage 
to  go  forward  to  a  secondary  school,  and  that  in  the  open  com- 
petition for  admission  to  such  schools  Latin  grammar  is  often 
one  of  the  required  subjects.  But  the  truth  is  that  at  the  age 
of  12  or  13,  at  which  it  is  fitting  to  select  such  a  pupil  for  an 
exhibition,  Latin  ought  not  to  be  required  at  all.  It  is  of  far 
more  importance  to  secure  that  his  intelligence  shall  have  been 


Latin  in  an  Elementary  School.  229 

quickened  by  the  ordinary  discipline  of  a  good  primary  school, 
than  that  he  should  have  been  exceptionally  trained  for  the 
exhibition,  and  he  will  learn  Latin  all  the  better  and  faster  in 
the  higher  school  for  having  received  such  discipline.  More- 
over the  Primary  school  has  no  right  to  sacrifice  the  interests 
of  the  mass  of  its  scholars  to  those  of  the  exhibitioner;  and  in 
the  interests  of  the  mass,  it  is  impossible  to  defend  the  teach- 
ing of  a  few  fragments  of  Latin  grammar  which  have  no  rela- 
tion to  anything  else  they  are  learning,  or  are  likely  to  learn. 

So  I  do  not  think  it  wise  in  Elementary  Schools  to  attempt 
the  formal  study  of  Latin.  But  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the 
language  has  claims  which  should  not  be  disregarded  even 
here.  Some  lessons  should  be  given  showing  that  there  is 
a  Latin  language,  explaining  who  used  to  speak  it,  and  how 
and  why  so  many  of  our  words  are  derived  from  it.  Even  in 
the  humblest  school-course  the  fact  that  other  languages  exist, 
and  that  there  are  many  ways  of  expressing  the  same  notion, 
ought  to  be  understood.  Then  it  is  well  to  teach  a  few  of  the 
simpler  tests  by  which  words  of  Latin  origin  may  be  identified 
by  terminations  or  otherwise;  and  to  explain  the  more  common 
of  the  phonetic  changes  which  words  undergo  in  becoming 
English.  These  should  not  be  presented  in  the  form  of  a  list 
or  table,  but  be  brought  out  by  induction  from  examples,  of 
which  some  may  be  suggested  by  the  teacher,  but  the  most 
supplied  by  the  scholars. 

The  Etymology  of  many  Latinized  words  might  be  advan- 
tageously explained.     But  here  a  good  deal  of  Derjvatjons 
caution  is  needed.     Tell  a  scholar  who  is  not   of  English 
learning  Latin  that  commit  comes  from  con  with, 
and  mitto  I  send,  or  perceive  from  per  and  capio,  or  obedience 
from  ob  and  audire,  and  you  have  simply  given  him  a  showy 
and  unmeaning  piece  of  knowledge,  and  rather  hindered  than 
helped  his  conception  of  the  real  significance  of  the  English 
derivative.     The  only  words  in  relation  to  which  the  mere 
learning  of  the  Latin  etymology  by  itself  secures  any  useful 
purpose,  are  words   like  submarine  or  soliloquy,  where   the 


230  The  Study  of  Language. 

etymology  brings  out  the  meaning  without  the  least  ambiguity. 
But  if  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  show  by  a  few  examples 
what  changes  and  modifications  of  meaning  Latin  words  have 
often  undergone  in  the  process  of  becoming  English,  the 
etymological  exercise  will  have  a  real  value.  In  particular 
you  will  find  it  useful  to  trace  out  the  changes  by  which  words 
which  have  at  first  a  literal  and  physical  meaning  come  in  time 
to  have  a  metaphorical  meaning.  You  take  the  word  fortis 
and  show  it  in  fortress  and  afterwards  in  fortitude  or  comfort. 
So  Morsel  and  remorse,  Effigy  and  fiction,  Image  and  imagina- 
tion, Pound  and  ponder,  Refract  and  infringe,  Integer  and 
integrity,  give  occasion  for  pointing  out  how  the  application  of 
a  word  to  some  moral  or  spiritual  truth  is  subsequent  to  its 
physical  meaning,  and  that  we  may  illustrate  a  moral  truth  by 
a  physical  image,  but  never  a  physical  fact  by  an  image  drawn 
from  the  world  of  thought.  A  few  of  the  most  familiar  Latin 
roots  may  then  be  taken,  e.g.  pose;  and  the  pupils  may  be  in- 
vited to  supply  words  containing  this  syllable, — suppose,  ex- 
pose, depose,  interpose,  repose,  and  to  show  what  is  the  common 
element  of  meaning  in  all  of  them. 

Afterwards  it  is  well  to  call  attention  to  the  double  significa- 
Preflxes  and  ti°n  of  the  Latin  prefixes,  to  show,  e.g.  that  they 
affixes.  have  a  physical  or  prepositional  meaning  in  some 

words,  as  in  transport,  invade,  expel,  emit,  zVifcrcollegiate,  re- 
gain, extra-mural,  perforate;  and  an  adverbial  or  derived 
meaning  as  transfigure,  zVwjomplete,  experience,  eloquence, 
^/ifcrjection,  respect,  extravagant,  perish.  In  teaching  these 
prefixes  it  is  needful  to  show  how  inadequate  a  notion  of  their 
meaning  is  obtained  by  looking  into  a  dictionary  and  simply 
taking  their  primitive  signification  as  prepositions,  without 
also  taking  into  account  their  secondary  meaning  when  they 
come  to  be  used  adverbially,  in  the  composition  of  verbs. 

If  in  these  ways,  Latin — not  its  formal  grammar,  but  a  part 
of  its  vocabulary,  and  such  facts  about  the  language  as  serve 
to  explain  the  structure  and  meaning  of  English  words— be 
recognized  as  a  subject  of  study  in  the  primary  school,  it  will 


French  and  German.  231 

be  found  very  stimulating  and  helpful  to  those  who  may  after- 
wards have  opportunities  of  learning  more  of  the  language; 
and  at  the  same  time,  it  will  be  of  substantial  value  even  to 
those  who  will  enjoy  no  such  opportunities,  and  is  in  no  sense 
out  of  harmony  with  all  else  that  is  taught  in  the  ordinary  ele- 
mentary course. 

In  teaching  a  modern  foreign  language  the  objects  we  are  to 
have  in  view  are  not  wholly  identical  with  those  Modern 
we  have  already  described.  It  is  true  French  foreign  Ian- 
may  in  one  sense  serve  the  same  purpose  as  Latin;  guages- 
if  its  grammar  is  taught  side  by  side  with  that  of  English,  and 
made  the  subject  of  constant  comparison  and  contrast.  But 
the  structure  of  French  grammar  does  not  furnish  either  com- 
parison or  contrast  quite  so  instructive  as  that  of  Latin  for  pur- 
poses of  philological  discipline,  or  for  throwing  light  on  the 
principles  of  grammar  per  se.  The  main  reason  for  teaching 
French  or  German  is  that  the  learner  may  read  books  and  con- 
verse in  that  language,  and  use  it  as  an  instrument  of  thought 
and  communication.  That  therefore  which  is  the  Their  special 
first  and  main  object  of  teaching  Latin — the  in-  purpose, 
vestigation  of  the  logic  of  language,  and  the  reflex  action  of  its 
grammar  on  the  structure  of  other  languages  and  particularly 
of  our  own — is  only  the  secondary  and  subordinate  object  to 
be  kept  in  view  in  the  teaching  of  French.  And  that  which  is 
the  principal  reason  for  learning  French,  viz.  that  we  may  be 
able  to  think,  to  speak,  and  to  write  in  it,  is  not,  for  purposes 
of  ordinary  education,  contemplated  in  the  study  of  Latin  at 
all.  And  it  is  only  by  keeping  this  fundamental  difference  in 
view  that  we  can  arrive  at  right  methods  of  teaching  either. 

Obviously,  some  of  the  principles  and  methods  already  dis- 
cussed apply  equally  to  Latin  and  French.     Both   How  far  th 
are  foreign  languages.     In  both  we  have  to  begin  resemble 
at  the  beginning,  to  learn  vocabulary  as  well  as 
grammar.    In  both  it  is  essential  to  begin  with  a  few  nouns, 
to  attach  them  first  to  verbs,  afterwards  to  adjectives,  after- 


232  The  Study  of  Language, 

wards  to  other  nouns  in  the  various  case-relationships.  In  both 
it  is  equally  important  that  new  rules  should  be  learned  only  if 
and  when  they  are  wanted,  and  should  be  seen  in  their  appli- 
cations and  applied  directly.  In  both  there  is  the  same  neces- 
sity for  kindling  the  interest  of  your  scholar,  by  connecting  the 
words  he  learns  with  living  realities,  with  things  and  events 
within  his  comprehension.  In  both  it  is  equally  desirable  to 
make  constant  reference  to  analogous  usages  and  constructions 
in  English. 

But  besides  this,  it  is  from  the  first  necessary  to  treat  French 
How  they  conversationally,  to  cause  it  to  be  talked  as  well 
differ  from  it.  as  learned.  It  is  not  certain  that  lessons  ever  so 
careful  on  elementary  sounds  in  French  are  the  best  helps  to 
this.  At  first  little  familiar  sentences  are  better.  I  have  seen 
in  one  of  the  best  schools  in  England  what  was  called  a  "  parrot 
class,"  in  which  little  girls  were  learning  to  utter  French 
phrases  and  nursery  rhymes,  with  the  right  pronunciation  and 
inflection  as  a  whole,  and  were  told  roughly  what  was  the 
meaning  of  them.  This  is  what  is  often  called  the  Mastery 
System.  By  it  children  are  not  at  first  allowed  to  see  French 
written,  but  are  made  to  acquire  a  thoroughly  French  pronun- 
ciation and  intonation  parrot-like,  before  they  begin  to  have 
their  attention  directed  to  the  sounds  of  separate  syllables,  to 
the  meaning  of  separate  words  and  idioms,  or  to  translation 
and  re-translation. 

Such  exercises  are  particularly  useful.  In  talking  we  v.-ant 
They  should  *°  ^e  trained  to  catch  the  meaning  of  a  whole  sen- 
from  the  first  tence  without  thinking  of  its  particular  parts,  and 
rather  than  the  laborious  synthesis  of  the  various  elements  of 
a  sentence  is,  as  we  all  know,  a  rather  slow  pro- 
cess. Some  therefore  of  the  early  work  of  teaching  a  young 
class  French  ought  to  correspond  to  the  way  in  which  a  little 
child  learns  English  from  its  mother  or  its  nurse,  i.e.  in  little 
sentences  which  at  first  carry  the  whole  meaning  with  them, 
and  are  not  thought  of  as  capable  of  analysis.  For  the  special 
purpose  contemplated  in  teaching  French,  the  sooner  the  child 


The  Speaking  of  Modern  Languages.       233 

learns  something  which  he  feels  a  pleasure  in  committing  to 
memory  the  better. 

It  is  evident  that  talking  in  the  language  and  learning  by 
heart  are  much  more  important  here  than  in  Latin.  No  lesson 
in  French  which  is  confined  to  translation  and  reading  is  worth 
much,  if  it  is  not  followed  up  by  actual  conversation.  Even 
the  simplest  affirmative  sentence  admits  of  being  turned  into 
an  interrogative,  or  furnishes  the  material  for  a  question  and 
answer  of  some  kind,  which  however  slightly  varied,  obliges 
the  child  to  make  the  words  his  own.  And  unless  the  learner 
makes  the  words  his  own,  and  learns  actually  to  use  them,  his 
progress  is  very  unsatisfactory.  Then  we  must  remember  that 
in  seeking  to  get  a  store  of  vocables  and  words  for  use,  it  is  not 
a  large  number  of  nouns  and  adjectives  which  we  want  first, 
but  a  few  familiar  locutions,  the  phrases  for  asking,  for  assert- 
ing, for  denying,  for  inquiring;  into  which  phrases  nouns  and 
adjectives  soon  fit  themselves  as  fast  as  they  are  known,  Mr. 
Quick  quotes  from  Marcel's  Study  of  languages  a  very  signifi- 
cant sentence,  "  Half  the  knowledge  with  twice  the  power  of 
applying  it  is  better  than  twice  the  knowledge  with  half  the 
power  of  application." 

To  recognize  the  meaning  and  understand  the  grammatical 

forms  of  words  as  they  are  printed  in  a  book  suf-   T 

.  .  Latin  for  the 

fices  in  learning  Latin,  and  is  itself  a  considerable   eye.  French 

achievement.    It  is  the  eye  through  which  you  fortheear- 
want  to  approach  the  understanding  in  this  case.     The  ear  and 
the  voice  have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  it;  for  scarcely  any- 
body ever  has  occasion  to  use  a  single  sentence  of  spoken 
Latin,  or  to  listen  to  Latin  and  interpret  it  at  the  same  time. 
But  in  French  or  German  it  is  the  ear  and  the  voice  we  want 
to  cultivate  quite  as  much  as  the  eye,  and  much  therefore  of 
every  good  French  lesson  should  go  on  with  the  books  closed. 
It  is  especially  important  to  use  many  exercises  in  what  may 

be  called  audition — the  listening  to  French  sen- 

,          . ,,      .   ,  t.      °.,  .    Audition, 

tences  and  rapidly  interpreting  them.     In  most 

schools,  there  is  not  even  enough  of  dictation  in  French,  which 


234  The  Study  of  Language. 

is  obviously  a  simple  and  necessary  exercise,  and  which  of 
course  you  will  not  neglect.  But  even  this  does  not  suffice, 
for  the  measured  careful  utterance  proper  to  a  dictation  lesson 
is  very  unlike  ordinary  speech,  and  many  scholars  will  write  a 
very  good  exercise  from  dictation,  who  would  be  quite  unable 
to  follow  a  conversation  or  even  a  sermon  or  oration  delivered 
in  the  ordinary  way.  Is  it  not  the  painful  experience  of  many 
of  us  who  may  be  very  familiar  with  book-French  and  able  to 
read  the  language  fluently,  that  when  we  once  cross  the  Chan- 
nel, and  hear  it  rapidly  uttered,  we  are  confused,  and  cannot 
follow  it  fast  enough.  Here  and  there  a  word  which  happens 
to  be  the  key-word  or  significant  word  in  the  sentence  wholly 
escapes  us;  and  this  causes  the  entire  sentence  to  be  unintel- 
ligible. We  wonder  why  people  will  talk  so  fast,  forgetting 
that  our  own  habitual  speech  is  often  just  as  rapid,  just  as  full 
of  contractions  and  elisions;  and  that  after  all  we  do  not  know 
a  language  for  speaking  purposes  unless  we  can  think  as  fast 
as  an  ordinary  person  talks.  Now  the  true  remedy  for  this  is 
constant  exercise  in  listening  either  to  reading  or  to  speech, 
uttered  at  the  rapid  rate  of  ordinary  conversation.  And  the 
power  to  make  a  right  use  of  such  an  exercise  is  far  more  easily 
attained  when  very  young,  and  when  the  mind  is  unencum- 
bered by  thoughts  of  analysis  and  grammar,  than  in  later  life. 
It  should  not  therefore  be  postponed  and  treated  as  an  advanced 
exercise,  but  frequently  adopted  from  the  beginning. 

Mr.  Bowen,  in  an  excellent  paper  read  at  the  late  Head  Mas- 
ters' Conference,  recommended  that  with  advanced  scholars  the 
occasional  use  of  a  French  book  of  reference  as  an  alternative 
for  an  English  one  is  useful.  He  recommends  reference  to  a 
good  French  gazetteer  or  dictionary,  or  to  the  Biographic  Uni- 
verselle,  in  addition  to  books  of  the  same  kind  in  English.  To 
this  it  may  be  added  that  some  of  the  scientific  manuals  by 
Guillemin  or  Papillon  are  as  easily  read  by  an  elder  boy  who 
has  learned  French  as  English  manuals,  and  often  excel  our 
books  in  style  and  in  clearness  of  arrangement.  The  sooner 
you  can  make  a  French  book  of  use  for  reference,  or  for  learn- 


Invention  and  Composition.  235 

ing  a  thing  at  first-hand,  the  more  rapid  will  be  the  progress 
of  your  pupil. 

Some  exercises  in  invention  and  arrangement  are  given  in 
most  of  the  books,  but  not,  as  it  seems  to  me,  g^^ggs  ta 
enough.  There  are  French  sentences  to  be  trans-  invention  and 
lated  into  English  and  English  into  French.  But  c 
there  are  not  enough  exercises  in  which  learners  are  required 
to  make  sentences  of  their  own.  These  however  are  very  im- 
portant. At  first  a  noun,  and  a  verb,  and  an  adjective  may  be 
given,  in  order  that  two  or  three  little  sentences  may  be  made 
out  of  them;  afterwards  a  few  nouns  may  be  given,  and  the  pupil 
told  to  put  at  his  own  discretion  appropriate  verbs  to  them. 
Then  verbs  or  adjectives  may  be  added  and  required  to  be 
added  to  suitable  nouns.  Afterwards  particular  idioms  or 
phrases  may  be  given,  and  the  pupil  asked  to  construct  sen- 
tences containing  them.  Thus  at  first  you  give  the  material 
for  such  sentences— but  little  by  little,  less  should  be  given,  and 
the  scholars  should  be  required  to  discover  and  supply  words 
for  themselves.  And  whether  the  required  words  are  supplied 
from  memory,  or  are  hunted  out  and  selected  from  a  book,  the 
exercise  is  equally  valuable. 

But  although  we  thus  dwell  chiefly  on  the  importance  of  the 
better  cultivation  of  the  ear  and  voice  in  teaching  a  modem 
foreign  language,  since  these  are  just  the  points  we  are  most  in 
danger  of  forgetting,  book- work  being  always  more  easy  and 
seductive  to  teachers  than  the  kind  of  oral  practice  which 
makes  constant  demands  on  your  skill,  your  promptitude,  and 
your  memory;  we  must  not  of  course  overlook  the  fact  that  the 
language  has  also  to  be  written,  and  its  grammar  thoroughly 
understood.  You  cannot  therefore  dispense  with  written  exer- 
cises, especially  in  grammar  and  in  composition,  of  the  same 
kind  as  you  would  find  necessary  in  teaching  Latin.  These, 
however,  are  precisely  the  things  which  good  modern  books 
supply  in  great  abundance. 

Lastly,  a  word  may  be  said  on  the  question  of  the  teachers 
of  foreign  languages.  It  is  generally  considered  indispensable 


236  The  Study  of  Language. 

to  have  a  Frenchman  to  teach  French,  and  a  German  to 
The  choice  teach  German.  But  experience  shows  us  that 
of  teachers,  ^he  power  to  speak  French  does  not  always  co- 
exist with  the  power  to  teach  it;  that  French  ushers  as  a  class 
are  without  the  general  liberal  education  which  you  look  for  in 
English  assistants;  and  that  as  specialists,  whose  position  ren- 
ders them  unable  to  look  on  the  school  work  as  a  whole,  they 
often  fail  to  secure  authority,  or  even  to  secure  full  knowledge 
for  their  own  subject.  It  is  obvious  too  that  most  of  them  are 
at  a  great  disadvantage  in  the  explanation  in  English  of  the 
meaning  of  the  rules,  and  especially  in  comparing  French 
idioms  with  English.  Accordingly,  in  some  of  the  best  schools 
the  modern  language  masters  preferred  are  scholarly  English- 
men, who  have  lived  for  a  time  abroad,  and  who  have  learned 
French  or  German  well  enough  to  think  and  converse  well  in 
it.  And  where  such  teachers  are  to  be  had,  I  should  be  dis- 
posed to  prefer  them.  The  objection  to  this  is  that  the  pro- 
nunciation is  not  likely  to  be  perfect.  But  it  is  very  easy  to 
overrate  the  importance  of  what  is  often  so  much  vaunted  in 
ladies'  schools,  the  purely  Parisian  accent,  and  to  pay  too 
heavy  a  price  for  it.  After  all,  this  accent  is  not  the  first  thing 
an  Englishman  wants.  He  will  acquire  it  if  he  goes  abroad; 
and  if  he  never  acquires  it,  the  power  to  express  himself  and 
to  derive  pleasure  from  reading  French  or  German  literature  is 
much  more  important. 


1 

The  Place  of  English  Among  Studies.       237 


IX.    THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

WE  have  tried  to  elucidate  in  the  last  lecture  these  general 
truths,  That  all  study  of  language  is  in  itself  dis-   The  relation 
ciplinal,  and  helps  greatly  the  development  of  one   °f  English 
particular  class  of  mental  power;   That  some  of   linguistic 
the  reasons  which  justify  the  teaching  of  Latin  studies- 
and  Greek  are  identical  with  those  which  make  us  teach  French 
or  German,  but  that  others  are  wholly  different;  That  Latin  is 
to  be  learned  as  a  literary  language,  and  with  a  view  to  gram- 
matical and  logical  training  mainly,  and  not  for  purposes  of 
expression  or  intercourse;    but  That  a  modern  language  is 
learned  mainly  for  the  sake  of  expression  and  intercourse,  and 
only  incidentally  and  in  a  subordinate  sense  as  a  linguistic  dis- 
cipline.    The  questions  arise  now — Why  and  how  should  we 
teach  English,  our  own  language?    What  place  in  a  complete 
scheme  of  instruction  should  the  vernacular  tongue  as  a  sepa- 
rate study  be  made  to  occupy? 

The  answer  to  this  question  depends  of  course  on  the  width 
and  extent  of  your  course,  and  on  the  nature  of  the  other  pro- 
vision which  that  course  affords  for  prosecuting  the  study  of 
grammar  as  a  science.  It  has  been  said  that  the  true  percep- 
tion of  that  science  is  the  result  of  the  synthesis  and  comparison 
of  two  languages,  and  is  well-nigh  unattainable  in  the  learning 
of  one.  For  that  reason,  I  have  already  urged  that  in  the 
teaching  of  Latin  or  of  French,  continual  reference  should  be 
made  to  analogous  forms  and  constructions  in  English.  And 
no  doubt  in  schools  in  which  other  languages  are  taught  in  this 
way,  much  of  English  is  learned  incidentally  by  comparison, 


238  The  English  Language. 

analogy,  and  contrast,  rather  than  in  the  form  of  intentional 
lessons  on  English,  per  se. 
It  is  mainly  in  this  incidental  and  indirect  way,  that  most 

English  scholars  have  come  to  learn  their  own  lan- 
A  v ernacu- 
lar  grammar    guage,  and  have  very  often  come  to  learn  it  well. 

ind!rectfvned  &°&  hence  it  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  English 
and  inciden-  grammar  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  wholly  useless, 
and  almost  as  if  it  were  non-existent.  And  wt 
are  to  inquire  to-day  whether  this  distrust  of  the  value  of  con- 
scious and  systematic  instruction  in  English  is  well  founded,  or 
whether  such  instruction  can  be  made  to  serve  a  real  educa- 
tional purpose.  We  know  that  in  France  and  Germany  the 
study  of  the  vernacular  tongue  is  treated  with  more  respect 
than  with  ourselves;  that  in  France  especially,  exercises  in  the 
structure,  logical  analysis,  and  composition  of  French  occupy 
a  good  deal  of  attention  even  in  schools  in  which  other  lan- 
guages are  taught;  and  that  it  is  probably  to  this  cause  we  may 
attribute  the  greater  ease  and  skill  with  which  as  a  rule  a 
Frenchman  uses  his  own  language,  as  compared  with  an  Eng- 
lishman of  corresponding  educational  standing  and  advantages. 
The  study  of  our  own  tongue  appears  to  deserve  more  respect- 
ful treatment  than  it  receives  even  in  our  higher  schools.  It 
certainly  is  a  valuable,  indeed  an  indispensable  educational  in- 
strument in  Primary  schools,  in  which  no  other  language  is 
taught. 

Of  one  thing,  however,  we  may  be  sure  from  the  first.  It  is 
Grammar  n°t  as  a  set  of  rules  for  enabling  English  people  to 
as  an  Art.  speak  correctly  that  English  grammar  has  the  least 
value.  This  is  the  popular  conception  of  grammar,  and  it  is  a 
very  erroneous  one.  Lindley  Murray  has  expressed  this  in  a 
definition.  "  Grammar  is  the  art  of  speaking  and  writing  the 
English  language  with  propriety."  Whoever  tries  to  learn  or 
to  teach  grammar  with  that  object  in  view,  is  doomed  to  disap- 
pointment. No  doubt  there  is  a  sense,  and  a  very  true  sense, 
in  which  all  careful  investigation  into  the  structure  of  words 
and  their  relations  gives  precision  to  speech.  But  this  is  an  in 


Practical  Uses  of  English   Grammar.       239 

direct  process.  The  direct  operation  and  use  of  grammar  rules 
in  improving  our  speech  and  making  it  correct,  can  hardly  be 
said  to  exist  at  all. 

For  we  all  learn  to  speak  the  English  language  in  one  fashion 
or  another  without  the  aid  of  books.  Some  of  the  Not  to  be 
best  and  purest  speakers  of  the  language  have  acquired 
either  never  learned  grammar,  or  are  not  in  any  y  r' 
way  consciously  guided  to  correct  speech  by  a  knowledge  of 
grammatical  rules.  They  have  learned  to  use  their  own  lan- 
guage by  using  it,  by  imitation  and  habit,  and  by  the  fine  in- 
tuition which  has  led  them  to  imitate  good  models  rather  than 
bad.  If  the  "  art  of  speaking  and  writing  the  English  language 
with  propriety"  is  the  one  thing  contemplated  by  learning 
grammar,  the  ordinary  means  are  very  imperfectly  adapted  to 
the  end;  for  the  study  of  grammar  from  a  scholastic  text-book, 
even  if  the  whole  of  it  is  learned  from  beginning  to  end,  is  very 
little  helpful  in  improving  the  pupil's  speech  and  writing.  The 
faults  which  occur  in  speech,  the  confusions,  the  clumsy  con- 
structions, the  misuse  of  words,  and  their  mispronunciation, 
are  not  as  a  rule  sins  against  grammar,  properly  so  called,  and 
are  not  to  be  set  right  by  learning  English  accidence  or  syntax. 
The  rules  given  in  books  have  little  or  no  practical  value.  For 
instance,  "  Transitive  verbs  and  prepositions  govern  the  objec- 
tive case."  What  does  this  mean?  In  English  nouns  there  is 
no  objective  case  distinguishable  from  the  nominative  at  all. 
In  pronouns  there  are  four  or  five  survivals  of  old  datives, 
which  now  serve  both  as  dative  and  accusative,  and  may  there- 
fore be  called  objective.  They  are  me,  tlice,  Mm,  Iwr,  iliem,  and 
wJuym.  And  the  rule  in  question  amounts  to  an  injunction  that 
we  should  use  these  six  words  in  their  proper  places,  and  not 
say,  "Give  /the  book,"  or,  "Send  the  money  to  he."  But 
these  are  faults  which  the  most  ignorant  child  is  in  no  danger 
of  committing,  and  against  which  no  warning  is  needed.  Con- 
sidered therefore  as  a  means  of  regulating  our  speech,  this  and 
the  like  rules  are  utterly  valueless. 

If  therefore  we  have  in  view  mainly  the  practical  art  of  using 


240  The  English  Language. 

the  language  in  speech  or  writing  with  good  taste  and  correct- 
ness, this  particular  result  is  probably  best  to  be  attained  by 
talking  to  the  pupil,  by  taking  care  he  hears  little  but  good 
English,  by  correcting  him  when  he  is  wrong,  by  making  him 
read  the  best  authors,  by  practising  him  much  in  writing,  and 
when  he  makes  a  mistake,  by  requiring  him  to  write  the  sen- 
tence again  without  one.  It  will  certainly  riot  be  attained 
by  setting  him  to  learn  Murray's,  or  indeed  any  other  grammar. 

Grammar,  however,  is  a  science  as  well  as  an  art,  and  from 
Grammar  as  this  point  of  view  it  investigates  the  structure  of 
a  Science.  language,  the  history  and  formation  of  words,  and 
the  manner  in  which  the  mechanism  of  grammatical  form  is 
fitted  to  fulfil  the  great  end  of  language — the  just,  subtle,  and 
forcible  expression  of  human  thought.1  And  if  a  book  on 
grammar  will  help  me  to  this  end,  and  will  reveal  to  me  the 
laws  and  principles  which  underlie  and  account  for  the  speech 
which  I  am  using  every  day,  then  the  study  of  such  a  book 
will  have  a  scientific  value  for  me  quite  apart  from  any  prac- 
tical help  which  it  may  give  in  avoiding  solecisms,  and  in 
"speaking  grammatically"  as  it  is  called.  Such  study  of 
grammar,  though  it  seems  rather  to  have  a  theoretic  than  a 
practical  character,  will  incidentally  serve  the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing the  speech  more  correct.  If,  however,  that  purpose  is  con 
templated  as  the  first  which  is  to  be  served  in  teaching,  we  not 
only  shall  not  attain  it,  but  we  shall  fail  altogether  to  achieve 
the  much  higher  ends  which  may  be  reached  by  the  teaching 
of  grammar  as  a  science. 

Now  the  notable  thing  about  manuals  of  English  grammar 
Manuals  of  until  very  lately  was  that  they  were  all  fashioned 
Grammar.  on  tue  game  model  as  a  Latin  or  Greek  grammar. 
There  were  Orthography,  Etymology,  Syntax,  and  Prosody. 
The  learner  begins  with  considering  letters,  and  the  whole 

1  "On  n'apprend  pas  plus  a  parler,  et  a  ecrire  avec  les  regies  de  la 
grammaire,  qu'on  n'apprend  tl  marcher  par  les  lois  de  T^quilibre."— ST. 
PIERRE. 


How  a  Vernacular  Language  is  Learned.    241 

alphabet  is  printed  on  the  first  page,  and  duly  classified  into 
vowels,  consonants,  semi-vowels,  and  diphthongs.  Then  he  is 
conducted  to  Etymology,  and  to  the  separate  study  of  words, 
which  he  is  called  on  to  classify  and  decline.  Then  comes 
Syntax,  when  he  is  invited  to  deal  with  sentences,  and  the  rela- 
tion of  their  parts,  and  to  learn  rules  of  concord  and  of  govern- 
ment. Finally,  he  reaches  Prosody,  under  which  head  he  finds 
punctuation,  metre,  and  other  grammatical  luxuries. 

But  long  before  a  child  comes  to  the  commencement  of  such  a 
book,  he  has  learned  to  speak,  and  to  use  his  native   ^  vernacular 
tongue.     He  knows  the  meaning  of  sentences,  and   language 
he  thinks  by  means  of  the  language.    That  which   taught  by 
is  in  teaching  French  the  ultimate  goal  of  your  a 
ambition,  conversation  and  freedom  in  using  words,  is  the  very 
point  of  departure  in  the  case  of  your  own  vernacular  speech. 
Your  pupil  has  already  attained  it.     Hence  the  methods  of 
teaching  a  native  and  a  foreign  language  are  fundamentally 
different.     The  slow,  synthetical  process  appropriate  in  the  one 
case,  of  beginning  with  words  —  in  the  case  of  German  and 
Greek,  even  with  the  alphabet,  —  and  building  up  at  first  short 
sentences,  then  longer  sentences,  is  wholly  illogical  and  absurd 
in  the  case  of  the  other.     To  a  child  a  sentence  is  easier  than  a 
word,  the  cognition  of  a  word  is  easier  than  that  of  a  syllable 
as  a  separate  entity;  and  the  syllable  itself  is  something  easier 
than  the  power  or  significance  of  a  single  letter.     4-"d  hjmce, 
the^way^_to__teach  English  ,  grammar^is^to^beginjwith  the^sen- 
{«ujce,  beramsejtG^ 


lyticaTtyT    If  otherkngua^gearetobelearned  bysynthesis, 

our  own  should  be  learned  by  the  opposite  process  of  analysis, 

and  whereas  we  learn  a  foreign  language  through  and  by 

means  of  its  grammar,  we  must  learn  and  discover  English 

grammar  through  and  by  means  of  the  language. 

/C-   Grammar  strictly  defined  is  the  logic  of  language  in  so  far 

f  and  in  so  far  only  as  it  finds  expression  in  the  inflections  and 

^jTorms  of  words.     In  Latin  forms,  you  find  this  logic  expressed 

with  some  fulness  and  scientific  accuracy.     In  English  it  is 

16 


242  The  English  Language. 

expressed  in  an  unscientific  and  very  incomplete  way.  But 
the  logic  jof  language,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  grammar,  is 
discernible  alike  in  both,  and  our  business  is  to  investigate 
that,  whether  it  reveals  itself  fully  in  grammatical  forms  or 
not. 

/    The  main  conclusions  to  which  we  have  thus  been  led  are 
v'four:     (1)  That  of  pure  grammar  there  is  very  little  in  the 
*  English  language.    (2)  That  this  little  when  discovered  has 
scarcely  any  practical  bearing  on  the   improvement  of  our 
speech.    (3)  That  nevertheless  the  study  of  the  English  lan- 
guage is  worth  pursuing,  and  if  the  expression  "  English  Gram- 
mar" be  enlarged  so  as  to  connote  exercises  in  the  logic,  his- 
tory, formation  and  relation  of  words,  it  will  designate  one  of 
the  most  fruitful  and  interesting  of  school  studies;  and  (4)  That 
whatever  is  to  be  learned  of  a  vernacular  language,  must  be 
learned  by  the  method  of  analysis,  and  not  by  the  synthetic  pro- 
xcess,  which  is  proper  in  studying  a  foreign  tongue. 

We  may  now  apply  these  conclusions  in  succession  to  several 
of  the  most  useful  forms  of  English  exercise. 

One  of  your  earliest  lessons  consists  of  a  view  of  the  parts  of 
Classiflca-  speech.  The  books  would  have  you  begin  by  say- 
tion.  ing  there  are  nine  of  them,  and  by  requiring  the 

pupil  to  learn  by  heart  the  definition  and  some  examples  of 
each.    But  it  is  surely  a  much  more  rational  method  to  begin  / 
with  a  sentence  which  the  scholar  already  understands,  and  so  I 
to  draw  from  him  the  simple  facts  that  in  using  language  there  ) 
are  two  essential  conditions,  viz., 

(1)  That  we  should  have  something  to  talk  about; 

(2)  That  we  should  have  something  to  say. 

You  may  illustrate  this  by  taking  a  little  sentence 

The  child  sleeps 

as  a  type,  and  you  say  that  the  former  word  is  called  the  Sub 
ject  or  the  thing  talked  about,  and  is  a  Noun,  and  the  latter  the 
Predicate,  the  tiling  said,  and  is  a  Verb. 


Classification  of  English  Words.  243 


Then  you  point  out  that  each  of  these  words  admits  of  exten- 
sion, and  takes  an  attribute; 

The  little  child  sleeps  soundly, 

and  you  show  that  the  one  word  enlarges  the  subject  and  the 
other  the  predicate.  You  then  invite  the  scholars  to  give  you 
other  sentences  containing  the  same  elements,  and  after  a  few 
examples  you  give  names  to  the  words  which  fulfil  these  two 
functions  and  call  the  one  an  Adjective  and  the  other  an  Adverb. 
Then  you  seek  to  attach  other  notions  to  the  first,  and  you 
do  this  in  two  ways: 

The  child  sleeps  on  the  bed. 

The  child  sleeps  because  he  is  tired. 

In  the  former  case  you  have  added  a  word,  in  the  latter  a 
new  sentence,  the  nature  of  the  connection  thus  established 
being  shown  by  the  word  in  italics.  Hence  is  deduced  the 
necessity  for  two  sorts  of  connective  words,  the  Preposition 
which  attaches  a  noun,  and  the  Conjunction  which  attaches  a 
sentence  to  what  has  gone  before. 

These  are  the  six  essential  elements  of  organized  speech,  and 
the  logical  order  of  their  importance  is 

Subject Noun. 

Predicate       ....  Verb. 
Adjunct  to  Subject      .       .  Adjective. 

Predicate  .       .  Adverb. 
Connective  of  Word     .       .  Preposition. 
"  Sentence      .  Conjunction. 

Then  you  go  on  to  show  that  you  have  not  exhausted  all  the 
words  in  the  language,  but  that  there  remain — 

(1)  The  Pronoun,  whose  use  you  illustrate  by  examples.    It 
is  not  a  new  element  in  language,  but  is  simply  used  as  a  con- 
venient substitute  for  a  noun  in  certain  cases. 

(2)  The  Article,  which  is  seen  to  be  a  kind  of  adjective  used 
in  a  very  special  sense. 


244  The  English  Language. 

You  show  that  these  two  though  useful  are  not  indispensa- 
ble, and  that  Latin  did  without  the  last  altogether. 

Lastly  you  point  out  that  what  is  often  called  the  ninth  part 
of  speech,  the  Interjection,  is  in  fact  not  a  part  of  speech  at  all; 
but  as  Home  Tooke  called  it  "the  miserable  refuge  of  the 
speechless."  It  is  the  one  form  of  human  utterance  which 
obeys  no  law,  and  is  closest  akin  to  the  screams  of  a  bird,  or  to 
the  growling  of  a  dog;  and  we  never  use  it  unless  for  a  moment 
we  part  with  the  privilege  of  humanity,  descend  to  the  level  of 
the  lower  animals,  and  cease  to  use  organized  language  alto- 
gether. 

Now  all  this  could  be  well  taught  with  varied  illustrations 
in  three  lessons,  and  the  outcome  of  it  would  show  itself  in 
some  such  black-board  sketch  or  summary  as  this: 

ESSENTIAL  PARTS  OF  SPEECH 
I. — Notional. 

1.  Words  capable  of  forming  the  subject  of  a  sentence  .  Nouns. 

2.  Words  capable  of  forming  the  predicate          .       .  .  Verbs. 

3.  Words  capable  of  serving  as  attributes  to  Nouns   .  .  Adjectives. 

4.  Words  capable  of  serving  as  attributes  to  Verbs   .  .  Adverbs. 

II. — Relational  or  Connective. 

5.  Words  connecting  Nouns  with  sentences         .       .       .  Prepositions. 

6.  Words  connecting  sentences  with  sentences   .       .       .  Conjunctions. 

NON-ESSENTIAL  BUT  SERVICEABLE  PARTS  OF  SPEECH. 

7.  Words  capable  of  being  used  as  substitutes  for  Nouns.  Pronouns. 

8.  Adjectives  with  a  special  and  limited  use        .       .       .  Articles. 


9.  EXTRA-QRAMHATICAL  UTTERANCES Interjections. 


In  further  investigation  of  the  use  of  each  class  of  words  you 
afterwards  bring  out  by  examples  these  facts: 

Nouns  may  serve  (a)  with  the  verb  "to  be,"  as  predicates;  (6)  with 
transitive  verbs,  as  objects  or  completion  of  predicates;  (c)  with  pre- 
positions, as  adjuncts  either  adjectival  or  adverbial. 


Definitions  of  Parts  of  Speech.  245 

A  verb  of  complete  predication  is  Intransitive;  one  which  makes  an 
incomplete  assertion.!?  Transitive. 

Pronouns  which  hftve  in  them  a  connective  element  of  meaning  are 
called  Relatives. 

So  that  instead  of  beginning  with  the  definitions  I  should  end 
with  them.  The  process  is  one  of  induction  and  analysis  from 
the  first.  You  begin  with  the  concrete  whole — a  sentence  with 
which  learners  are  already  familiar,  you  work  down  to  its 
parts,  you  seek  to  discriminate  them  carefully;  then,  and  not 
till  then,  you  give  them  names,  and  finally  by  way  of  clinching 
your  lesson  you  ask  for  the  meanings  of  those  names,  and  after 
a  few  experiments  of  the  Socratic  kind,  may  succeed  in  evolv- 
ing a  good  definition  of  each.  In  doing  this  explain  if  you  like 
the  significance  of  the  name.  But  this  is  not  always  easy,  and 
when  easy  not  always  helpful.  Our  grammatical  terminology 
is  so  arbitrary,  that  an  etymological  inquiry  into  the  meaning 
of  the  words  Preposition,  Infinitive,  Adjective,  will  rather  mis- 
lead than  otherwise. 

At  this  point  you  will  find  how  useful  it  is  to  give  examples 
illustrative  of  the  way  in  which  the  same  word  may  be  used  in 
very  different  ways:  e.g. 

(1)  Rest  comes  to  the  weary.    They  rest  from  their  labors. 

(2)  Light  is  diffused  by  reflection.    This  is  a  light  room.    They  light 

the  candle. 

(3)  Reading  is  a  useful  art.    They  have  been  reading  an  hour.    She 

has  a  reading  book. 

By  a  few  tentative  sentences  of  this  kind  you  will  show  that 
it  is  impossible  to  label  a  word  with  a  name  while  it  stands 
alone,  that  in  fact  it  is  not  a  part  of  speech  at  all  until  it  is  seen 
in  a  sentence.  Follow  this  up  by  asking  such  a  question  as 
this:  "  take  the  word  Sound  and  put  it  into  a  sentence  so  that 
it  shall  be  a  noun — an  adjective — a  verb."  Much  exercise  in 
the  making  of  sentences  to  illustrate  each  new  distinction  as  it 
is  pointed  out,  is  indispensable. 

You  go  back  then  to  the  Noun,  the  Adjective,  and  the  Adverb, 


246  The  English  Language. 


and  show  that  though  each  is  generally  expressed  by  one  word, 
each  may  be  expanded  into  a  phrase  or  sentence  which  is 
equivalent  to  it. 

E.g.  (1)  The  rainbow  appears          ....       Simple  noun. 
That  you  have  wronged  vie  doth  appear  in 

this Noun  sentence. 

(2)  The  small  house  is  mine      ....       Simple  adjective. 
The  house  on  the  hill  is  mine     .       .       .       Adjective  phrase. 
The  house  which  you  saw  is  mine     .        .       Adjective  sentence. 

(3)  She  sings  sweetly Simple  adverb. 

She  sings  in  the  garden       ....       Adverbial  phrase. 
She  sings  when  she  is  asked       .       .       .       Adverbial  sentence. 

When  such  preliminary  exercises  have  been  thought  out  the 
Logical  scholar  will  be  ready  for  the  more  complete  analy- 

Analysis.  gjg  Of  flje  parts  of  sentences  and  their  relations  to 
each  other.  This  is  an  intellectual  exercise  of  considerable 
value.  It  is  not  grammar,  it  is  true;  it  is  rather  elementary 
logic;  but  it  lies  at  the  root  of  grammar;  and  when  you  have 
first  taught  your  pupils  to  recognize  the  elements  of  a  sentence 
and  their  mutual  correlation,  you  will  be  in  a  position  to  ask 
how  far  each  logical  distinction  has  a  grammatical  or  formative 
distinction  to  correspond  to  it. 

As  to  the  laying  out  of  the  result  of  such  an  analysis,  there  is 
of  course  no  absolutely  right  or  wrong  method.  But  I  would 
warn  you  against  the  common  method  of  making  a  square  dia- 
gram and  trying  to  fit  every  sentence  into  it,  e.g.: 


Subject. 

Predicate. 

Object,  or 
completion  of 
Predicate. 

Extension. 

The  curfew 

tolls 

the  knell 

of  parting  day. 

This  is  something  like  the  bed  of  Procrustes,  and  has  a  double 
disadvantage.  It  often  leaves  great  vacant  spaces,  and  it  fails 
altogether  to  show  the  real  relations  of  words,  phrases,  and  sen- 
tences to  one  another. 


Logical  Analysis.  247 

Some  sentences  contain  only  one  or  two  elements,  and  may 
be  dismissed  in  two  lines.  Others  require  the  statement  of  many 
more  particulars  than  are  provided  for  in  such  a  diagram.  The 
essential  points  in  relation  to  the  analysis  are  (1)  That  an  ac- 
count shall  be  given  of  every  separate  logical  element  in  the 
sentence;  (2)  That  the  meaning  and  force  of  each  of  the  con- 
nective words  which  are  not  atrictly  in  the  sentence  but  which 
indicate  the  character  of  subordinate  sentences,  shall  be  de- 
scribed; and  (3)  That  the  relation  of  the  several  sentences  to 
each  other  whether  as  co-ordinate  or  subordinate  shall  also  be 
clearly  shown.  These  conditions  will  be  found  to  be  fulfilled 
in  the  example  on  the  next  page. 

After  some  exercises  of  this  kind  in  logical  parsing,  or  con- 
currently with  them,  it  is  useful  to  give  the  ordi-   Gram. 
nary  drill  in  grammatical  parsing.     But  here  it  is   matical 
necessary  to  distinguish  between  the  proper  pro- 
vince of  logic  and  that  of  pure  grammar.    For  instance,  the 
difference  between  Common  and  Proper  nouns  is  the  logical 
difference  between  universals  and  particulars,  and  has  no  place 
in  grammar  whatever.     And  the  distinction  of  sex  is  in  no 
sense  logical,  and  in  English  is  hardly  grammatical.     It  deter- 
mines the  form  of  our  nouns  and   pronouns  in  only  a  very 
limited  number  of  cases;  and  we  have  no  conventional  sex,  as 
in  Latin  and  French,  which  affects  the  concord  of  adjectives. 
Hence  the  enumeration  of  Gender  among  the  attributes  of  Eng- 
lish words  has  little  to  do  with  Etymology  and  less  with  Syn- 
tax, and  in  fact  serves  no  grammatical  purpose  at  all. 

But  now  farewell.    I  am  going  a  long  way 

With  these  thou  seest— if  indeed  I  go  Specimen  of 

(For  all  my  mind  is  clouded  with  a  doubt)-    Analysis. 

To  the  island  valley  of  Avilion ; 

Where  falls  not  hail,  or  rain,  or  any  snow, 

Nor  ever  wind  blows  loudly;  but  it  lies 

Deep-meadowed,  happy,  fair  with  orchard  lawns, 

And  bowery  hollows  crowned  with  summer  sea, 

Where  I  will  heal  me  of  my  grievous  wound. 

TENNYSON. 


248 


The  English  Language. 


0. 


D. 


E. 


Continua- 
tion of  B. 


F. 


G. 


1  But  Particle    connecting  sentence   with 

the  preceding. 

2  now  Adverbial  adjunct  to  3. 

3  farewell  Predicate. 

4  I  Subject. 

5  am  going  Predicate. 

6  a  long  way  Adverbial  adjunct  to  5. 

7  with  these  "  "         " 

8  [whom]  Object. 

9  thou  Subject. 

10  seest  Predicate. 

11  If  Particle  introducing  sentence  D. 

12  indeed  Adverbial  adjunct  to  14. 

13  I  Subject. 

14  go  Predicate. 

15  For  Particle  introducing  sentence  E. 

16  all  my  mind  Subject. 

17  is  clouded  Predicate. 

18  with  a  doubt          Adverbial  adjunct  to  17. 
f  19  To  the  island 

valley  Adverbial  adjunct  to  5. 

[20  of  Avilion  Adjectival  adjunct  to  "  valley"  in  19. 

21  Where  —  in  which.  Adverbial  adjunct  to  22. 

22  falls  Predicate. 

23  not  Negative  adjunct  to  22. 

24  hail  Subject. 

25  or  rain  Alternative  subject. 

26  or  any  snow  Alternative  subject. 

27  nor  Particle  showing  relation  of  F  to  G. 

28  ever  Adverbial  adjunct  to  80. 

29  wind  Subject. 

30  blows  Predicate. 

.31  loudly  Adverbial  adjunct  to  30. 

82  But  Particle  introducing  co-ordinate  ad- 

versative sentence  to  F  and  Q. 

Subject. 

Predicate. 

Adjectival  adjunct  to  33. 


H. 


33  it 

34  lies 

85  deep-meadowed 

36  happy 

37  fair,  with  orchard 

lawns  and  bow- 
ery hollows  "  "          " 

38  crowned   with 

summer  sea       Adjectival  adjunct  to"  hollow1'  in  37. 


Specimen  of  Logical  Analysis.  249 

39  Where  Adverbial  adjunct  to  41. 

40  I  Subject. 

41  will  heal  me          Predicate. 

42  of   my   grievous 

wound  Adverbial  adjunct  to  4L 


A.  Principal  sentence. 

B.  "  "          co-ordinate  with  A. 

C.  Adjective  sentence  to  the  word  "  these"  in  B. 

D.  Conditional  sentence  subordinate  to  B. 

E.  Causative  sentence  subordinate  to  D. 

F.  Adjective  sentence  to  "  valley"  in  B. 

G.  Co-ordinate  sentence  to  F. 
H.  Co-ordinate  sentence  to  GK 

I.  Adverbial  sentence  to  34  in  H. 

NOTE. — The  last  sentence  I.  might  be  interpreted  in  the  same  way  as 
F.,  as  an  adjective  sentence  qualifying  33. 

Let  me  now  give  you  an  illustration  of  another  kind  of  lesson, 
in  which,  as  indeed  in  all  other  inquiries  into  Eng-  A  leggon  on 
lish,  a  knowledge  of  the  elements  of  Old  Eng-  Auxiliary 
lish  Grammar  will  be  of  great  help  to  you.  Begin 
with  a  few  examples  of  the  use  of  Auxiliary  verbs.  You  ob- 
serve that  there  is  no  inflectional  provision  for  Perfect,  Plu- 
perfect, or  Future  tense  in  English,  nor  for  the  Potential 
Mood,  but  these  modifications  of  meaning  are  shown  by  auxil- 
iaries. The  old  grammars  recognized  a  fundamental  distinc- 
tion between  this  method  and  that  of  accidence.  In  Ben  Jon- 
son's  Grammar  for  instance,  you  will  find  the  statement  that 
the  English  Language  has  no  Future  tense,  but  that  its  place  is 
supplied  by  a  Syntax.  With  this  in  view,  it  is  worth  while  to 
give  several  special  lessons  on  the  peculiar  function  and  use  of 
auxiliaries  in  English.  And  in  doing  this,  you  will  choose 
first  examples  of  the  use  of  these  words  not  as  auxiliaries,  but 
as  principal  and  independent  verbs.  "  Before  Abraham  was  I 
am."  Here  the  verb  be  is  independent  and  means  existence. 
Afterwards  and  in  ordinary  modern  use,  it  becomes  a  mere 
copula.  "He  was  going,  I  am  a  soldier."  Again  "ITutve  a 


250  The  English  Language. 

book,  I  Tuwe  finished  the  book."  The  first  and  independent 
meaning  of  the  word  "have"  is  seen  to  be  that  of  possession, 
the  subsequent  meaning  that  of  completion.  You  show  that 
"  will  "  simply  implies  volition  in  such  a  sentence  as  "  If  I  will 
that  he  tarry  till  I  come;"  but  that  in  the  sentence  "  He  will 
go,"  it  implies  futurity.  You  ask  why  in  merely  stating  a  fact 
about  a  future  act,  you  say  "I  shall  come;"  but  "They  will 
come;"  yet  that  if  you  desire  to  express  the  same  thing  with 
more  positiveness  you  change  the  form  and  say  "  I  will,"  and 
"They  shall."  And  having  traced  this  usus  ethicus  by  means 
of  the  analogous  forms  sJwuld  and  would,  you  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  though  these  two  words  have  come  in  time  to  be 
auxiliaries,  some  faint  reminiscence  of  their  early  signification 
still  clings  to  them,  and  that  even  in  their  modern  use,  we  can 
discern  traces  of  the  idea  of  volition  in  will  and  would,  and  of 
obligation  in  shall  and  should.  The  same  thing  is  seen  on  ex- 
amination to  be  true  of  all  the  auxiliary  verbs.  They  have  in 
becoming  mere  substitutes  for  inflection  parted  with  much  of 
their  original  meaning,  but  in  all  cases  some  flavor  of  that  origi- 
nal meaning  remains.  The  result  of  these  inquiries  may  then 
be  tabulated  in  some  such  form  as  this: 

English  Auxiliary  Verbs. 

Primitive  Meaning.  Derived  or  Secondary  Meaning. 
BE  Beon                Existence  Copula. 

HAVE  Habban       Possession  Completed  action. 

WILL 


^ 

WOULD 

SHALL  Scealan  I    _ 

j-  Obligation  Futurity    (2). 

MAY  Magan  Ability,  Power  Permission. 

CAN  Cunnan  Knowledge  Ability. 

MUST  Mot  Compulsion  Obligation. 

Do  Don  Action  * 

*  Contributes  by  itself  no  additional  meaning  to  the  verb,  but  serves 
(1)  to  carry  emphasis,  as  I  do  wish;  (2)  to  furnish  a  place  for  a  negative 
or  other  adverb,  as  I  did  not  go;  or  (3)  to  help  the  construction  of  an 
interrogative  sentence,  as  Did  I  forget? 


Verbal  Analysis. 


251 


Word-building  and  analysis — the  investigation  of  the  parts  of 
words  and  the  separate  significations  of  each  part  verbal 
— form  a  most  useful  exercise.  You  take  the  word  A^ysis- 
Unselfishness  and  decompose  it.  Self  is  seen  to  be  here  used  as 
a  noun.  This  noun  becomes  an  adjective  by  the  termination 
ish.  The  adjective  thus  formed  is  negatived  by  the  prefix  un, 
and  this  adjective  Unselfish  is  converted  into  an  abstract  noun 
by  the  addition  of  the  syllable  ness.  At  each  of  these  steps  it  is 
well  to  ask  for  a  number  of  other  examples  of  similar  construc- 
tion, to  write  them  down,  and  to  ask  the  pupils  to  make  the 
generalization  for  themselves.  Such  a  word  as  Indestructibility 
in  like  manner  may  be  analyzed,  and  the  value  and  force  of 
each  separate  syllable  shown.  And  after  this  has  been  done, 
the  result  of  the  collocation  of  a  number  of  examples,  which 
will  have  been  mainly  supplied  by  the  pupils,  will  appear  in 
some  such  form  as  this.  It  certainly  should  not  be  presented 
at  first  in  the  form  of  a  list  to  be  learned  from  a  text-book,  but 
should  grow  as  the  facts  are  elicited  in  successive  lessons. 


NOUNS. 


VERBS. 


ADJECTIVES. 


ENGLISH. 

LATIN.               GREEK. 

(a)  From  verbs     Doer 

Sponsor           Acoustics 

Learning 

Subtraction     Catechism 

Knowledge 

Experience     £Q/pothesis 

(6)  From  adjec-  1  ~ 
f  Goodness 
tives 

Purity 

Truift 

Longitwde     f  Cycloid 

(c)  From   other  I  „. 
h  Kingdom 
nouns 

J  Diameter 
1  Iliad 

Duckling 

ReticwZe        (.  Asterisfc 

(a)  From  nouns    .Embody 

Fabricate  .Metamorphose 

(6)  From  adjec-  1  _ 
J      r  Sweeten 
tives         ' 

Falsify            Christianize 

.Enlarge 

Celebrate 

(c)  From   other  » 
verbs 

Destroy 

Wander 

Inhale 

.Behave 

(a)  From  nouns     Childis/i 

Arbitrary      .Ewphonious 

Fruitful 

Graciows       Cosmic 

Rainy 

RoyaZ            -4mp/iibious 

Weekly 

CivtZ 

252  The  English  Language. 

ENGLISH.  LATIN.               GREEK. 

(6)  From  verbs     ReadaWe  Audible         Symbolic 

Willtngr  Illustrative 

Beloved  Decent 
Ornate 

(c)  From  other  adjectives 

Untidy  Improper     Atheistic 

Ruder  Superior 
Blackts/i 

Such  a  series  of  inductive  lessons  having  been  given,  lists  of 
illustrative  examples  prepared,  and  sentences  framed  to  contain 
each  of  the  less  familiar  words,  the  pupil  will  know  something 
of  the  genesis  both  of  words  and  of  thoughts,  and  will  be  able 
on  looking  at  many  words  to  tell  at  once  to  what  class  they  be- 
long, from  what  sort  of  words  they  are  immediately  formed, 
and  from  what  language  they  are  derived.  I  know  no  lesson 
which  when  well  given  awakens  more  interest  and  mental  ac- 
tivity even  among  young  children  than  this. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  part  of  English  grammar  which  is 
usually  considered  most  practical  as  an  aid  in  cor- 
rect speaking  consists  of  the  Rules  of  Syntax.  But 
although  it  is  useful  to  have  at  hand  a  compendium  of  such 
rules  and  to  refer  to  them  occasionally,  experience  shows  that 
they  have  no  value  as  guides.  The  true  discipline  in  correct 
speech  is  to  be  found  in  the  practice  of  composition,  which 
should  begin  from  the  first.  Short  sentences  should  be  pre- 
pared by  the  pupil  to  exemplify  each  new  fact  or  distinction 
which  you  explain,  and  by  degrees  the  sentences  may  become 
more  complex. 

In  the  choice  of  subjects  for  composition  exercises,  let  them 
be  those  on  which  the  scholars  have  something  to  say.  Do  not 
ask  your  scholars  to  write  on  mere  abstract  themes.  "  Virtus 
est  bona  res,"  "Time  is  money,"  and  other  arid  generalities  of 
that  kind,  have  little  interest  for  scholars,  and  they  do  not  know 
what  to  say  about  them.  Let  the  composition  exercises  always 
refer  to  something  of  which  a  boy  has  the  material  at  hand,  an 
expedition  he  has  recently  taken,  a  story  you  have  just  read  to 


Paraphrase.  253 

him,  a  letter  detailing  some  recent  experience  or  well-known 
fact.  It  is  probable  that  the  number  of  solecisms  in  speech  or 
in  the  formation  of  sentences  which  you  will  find  among  your 
pupils  is  very  small,  especially  if  they  are  in  the  habit  of  living 
and  speaking  with  educated  people  at  home.  The  chief  diffi- 
culties which  occur  in  actual  composition  are  apt  to  show 
themselves  in  conn"  ...on  with  the  use  of  the  relatives,  and  con- 
nective wor^"  particularly  in  those  sentences  which  are  ellipti- 
cal in  form,  and  in  which  some  part  has  to  be  supplied.  You 
will  deal  with  this  form  of  fault  partly  by  requiring  as  a  rule 
that  sentences  should  be  shorter  than  young  people  are  apt  to 
make  them;  partly  by  requiring  the  lacuna  in  elliptical  senten- 
ces to  be  filled  up,  and  partly  by  taking  an  involved  or  mud- 
dled sentence  now  and  then,  and  setting  scholars  to  parse  or 
analyze  it.  This  indicates  where  the  difficulty  of  the  construc- 
tion lies,  and  helps  to  show  how  the  thought  might  by  a  rear- 
rangement of  words,  or  by  the  use  of  two  sentences  instead  of 
one,  be  more  concisely  or  more  elegantly  expressed. 

One  essential  object  contemplated  in  the  study  of  our  own 
language  is  a  knowledge  of  the  meanings  of  its  Meanings  • 
words.  This,  it  is  true,  is  not  grammar,  but  it  is  of  WOTds- 
closely  connected  with  it.  Definitions  of  words,  however,  must 
not  be  learned  by  heart,  from  dictionaries  or  lists,  because  the 
same  word  has  not  always  the  same  meaning,  and  because  the 
meaning  is  often  determined  by  the  context.  Sentences,  we 
have  said,  are  to  a  child  easier  than  single  words,  and  it  is  of- 
ten better  to  require  a  paraphrase  of  a  short  sentence,  than  to 
demand  exact  synonyms,  which  though  right  in  the  particular 
case  will  be  wrong  for  others.  Not  until  after  much  practice 
in  giving  the  substance  of  short  sentences  in  other  language,  is  it 
useful  to  require  exact  definitions  of  particular  words. 

In  fashioning  lessons  for  Paraphrase,  it  will  be  well  to  adopt 
for  yourselves  and  your  pupils  a  few  very  simple 
rules: 

(1)  Do  not  think  that  you  have  to  find  an  equivalent  for 
every  word.    But  read  the  whole  passage,  turn  it  over  in  the 


254  The  English  Language. 


mind;  keep  in  view  its  drift  and  general  purpose,  and  then  re- 
write it,  so  as  to  convey  the  collective  meaning  of  the  passage, 
not  a  translation  of  its  words. 

(2)  Do  not  be  afraid  of  using  the  same  word,  if  it  is  clearly 
the  best,  and  an  equivalent  cannot  be  found. 

(3)  Be  sure  that  the  sentences  are  short  and  simple,  and  guard 
with  special  care  against  the  vicious  use  of  relatives,  participles, 
and  connective  words,  and  particularly  of  any  constructions 
which  you  could  not  easily  parse. 

(4)  Never  use  two  words  where  one  would  suffice  to  express 
your  thought;  nor  a  hard  word  where  an  easy  one  would  con- 
vey your  meaning;  nor  any  word  at  all  unless  you  are  quite 
sure  it  has  a  meaning  to  convey.     At  the  same  time,  in  dealing 
with  very  concise  writers  it  is  not  necessary  to  try  to  make  the 
paraphrase  as  short  as  the  original. 

(5)  Do  not  translate  all  the  metaphors,  or  all  the  poetry  into 
prose.     Slight  change  of  figurative  language  is  quite  legitimate 
so  long  as  the  meaning  is  preserved. 

(6)  Keep  in  mind  the  general  style  of  the  extract,  and,  if  it 
be  grave  or  playful,  maintain  its  character  as  far  as  you  can, 
and  be  careful  that  the  result  shall  be  a  perfectly  readable  piece 
of  English,  which  would  be  intelligible  to  those  who  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  original. 

I  will  suppose  that  with   these  general  rules  in  view  you 

attempt  to  recast  the  following  well-known  pas- 
Examples.  ,        _ 

sage  from  Bacon: 

Studies  serve  for  delight,  for  ornament,  and  for  ability.  The  chief 
use  for  delight  is  in  privateness  and  retiring;  for  ornament  is  in  dis- 
course; and  for  ability  is  in  the  judgment  and  disposition  of  business. 
For  expert  men  can  execute,  and  perhaps  judge  of  particulars  one  by 
one,  but  the  general  counsels,  and  the  plots  and  marshalling  of  affairs 
come  best  from  those  that  are  learned.  To  spend  too  much  time  in 
studies  is  sloth;  to  use  them  too  much  for  ornament  is  affectation;  to 
make  judgment  wholly  by  their  rules  is  the  humor  of  a  scholar.  They 
perfect  nature,  and  are  perfected  by  experience.  For  natural  abilities 
are  like  natural  plants,  that  need  pruning  by  study.  And  studies  them- 
selves do  give  forth  directions  too  much  at  large,  except  they  be  bound- 
ed in  by  experience. 


Examples  of  Paraphrase.  255 

Crafty  men  contemn  studies,  simple  men  admire  them,  and  wise  men 
use  them.  For  they  teach  not  their  own  use;  but  that  is  a  wisdom  with- 
out them  and  above  them,  won  by  observation.— BACON'S  Essays. 

You  first  read  it  aloud,  and  point  out  that  here  the  word 
"  studies"  is  used  for  learning  generally.  You  call  attention  to 
the  special  sense  in  which  for  his  present  purpose  Bacon  uses 
the  words  " ability,"  " discourse,"  and  "crafty."  You  show 
how  closely  he  has  packed  his  meaning  into  a  few  words.  And 
perhaps  you  arrive  after  this  at  something  of  this  sort: 

I.  Learning  is  valuable  in  three  ways— as  a  source  of  pleasure,  as  a 
means  of  adding  grace  and  beauty  to  life,  and  as  an  instrument  for  the 
discharge  of  duty.  The  first  of  these  advantages  is  chiefly  enjoyed  in 
solitude;  the  second  is  found  in  social  intercourse,  while  its  third  use  is 
that  it  helps  us  to  order  and  arrange  the  business  of  life.  For  although 
men  of  natural  acuteness  can  perform  good  work  and  form  right  judg- 
ments about  its  details,  yet  the  power  to  view  things  comprehensively, 
to  group  them  together,  and  to  exercise  a  wise  forethought  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  business  is  rarely  possessed  except  by  the  well-instructed 
man. 

It  is  a  mark  of  indolence  to  give  ourselves  up  wholly  to  the  enjoyment 
of  literature;  it  is  a  proof  of  self-conceit  to  value  our  reading  only  as  a 
means  of  display ;  while  to  determine  all  questions  by  what  books  say 
is  the  sure  characteristic  of  a  pedant.  Learning  supplements  and  im- 
proves natural  gifts,  but  itself  needs  to  be  further  improved  by  the 
experience  of  life;  for  our  natural  gifts  are  like  trees  which  need 
discipline  and  culture,  and  learning  itself  is  apt  to  mislead  a  student, 
unless  its  conclusions  are  corrected  by  actual  experience. 

Learning  is  not  unf  requently  despised  by  the  clever  practical  man ;  it 
is  regarded  with  childish  wonder  by  the  foolish;  but  it  is  only  truly 
appreciated  by  the  wise.  For  learning  does  not  teach  its  possessor  how 
to  employ  it;  the  power  to  do  this  aright  is  a  higher  attainment  than 
any  scholarship,  and  can  only  come  by  thinking  and  observing. 

Or  you  choose  for  an  analysis  of  its  meaning  part  of  the 
opening  passage  of  Paradise  Lost. 

And  chiefly  Thou,  O  Spirit,  that  dost  prefer 
Before  all  temples  the  upright  heart  and  pure, 
Instruct  me,  for  Thou  knowest:  Thou  from  the  first 
Wast  present,  and  with  mighty  wings  outspread, 
Dove-like,  sat'st  brooding  o'er  the  vast  abyss, 


256  The  English  Language. 

And  mad'st  it  pregnant:  What  in  me  is  dark 

Illumine;  what  is  low  raise  and  support, 

That  to  the  height  of  this  great  argument 

I  may  assert  Eternal  Providence, 

And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men.  MILTON. 

It  is  not  well  to  begin  at  once  and  try  to  paraphrase  line  by 
line.  But  the  character  of  the  invocations  with  which  the  Iliad 
and  the  ^Eneid  commence  may  be  pointed  out;  then  Milton's 
classicalism,  dominated  as  it  was  in  this  case  by  devout  Chris- 
tian feeling;  then  the  passage  in  Genesis  which  was  evidently 
in  his  mind;  finally  the  mingling  of  humility  in  the  presence 
of  so  vast  an  undertaking,  with  an  inward  consciousness  of 
power  to  achieve  it.  Afterwards  the  meaning  of  the  whole 
passage  admits  of  being  rendered  on  this  wise; 

II.  But  most  of  all  do  I  invoke  Thine  aid  and  teaching:  Thou  Holy 
Spirit,  whose  choicest  dwelling  place  is  the  guileless  and  reverent  hu- 
man heart.  Thou  wast  present  at  the  beginning  and  like  a  dove  with 
outstretch'd  pinions  didst  hover  over  the  void  and  formless  infinite,  and 
impregnate  it  with  life. 

In  so  far  as  I  am  ignorant,  enlighten  me:  when  my  thoughts  are  mean 
or  poor,  elevate  and  sustain  them;  that  so  I  may  be  enabled  to  utter 
words  not  unworthy  of  my  lofty  theme,  to  speak  rightly  of  the  Divine 
Government  and  to  vindicate  the  dealings  of  God  with  mankind. 

In  choosing  passages  for  this  purpose,  it  is  well  to  have 
regard  as  much  to  the  ease,  the  dignity,  and  the  charm  of  the 
language  as  to  the  instruction  which  it  may  convey.  And 
exercises  of  this  kind,  though  more  often  in  writing,  may  often 
with  advantage  be  oral,  and  should  almost  always  be  made  the 
subject  of  conversation  and  questioning  before  they  arc 
attempted. 

With  a  view  to  correct  the  tendency  to  wordiness,  which 
some  forms  of  paraphrase  are  apt  to  generate,  it  is 
well  to  intersperse  them  with  a  few  exercises  on 
what  is  called  in  the  public  offices  precis-writing;  the  condensa- 
tion into  a  sentence  or  two  of  the  main  drift  and  purpose  of  a 
letter,  an  essay,  or  a  formal  document.     The  effort  of  mind 
required  here  in  seizing  upon  the  salient  point  among  a  num- 


Verse-making.  251 


ber  of  particulars,  of  seeing  the  difference  between  the  most 
relevant  and  the  least  relevant  parts  of  a  statement,  and  of 
stripping  off  all  the  dressing  and  circumlocution  from  the  one 
chief  purpose  of  a  writer,  is  not  only  of  special  value  in  the 
after  conduct  of  official  business,  but  it  is  in  itself  of  great 
value  in  promoting  discernment  and  clearness  of  thought. 
Considering  how  important  a  part  is  played  by  verse-making 

in  the  learning  of  Greek  and  Latin,  it  is  remarka-   _ 

Versification, 
ble  that  the  composition  of  English  verse  is  so 

seldom  set  as  a  school  exercise.  It  must  be  owned  that  the 
Sapphics  and  Hexameters  produced  by  school-boys  do  little  to 
call  out  invention  and  literary  taste.  They  are  good  exercises 
in  grammar  and  prosody,  and  they  guard  the  pupil  against  the 
one  deadly  sin  of  making  false  quantities; — a  sin  however,  of 
which  in  the  case  of  two  languages  which  are  seldom  or  never 
to  be  spoken, — it  is  very  easy  to  exaggerate  the  seriousness. 
The  effort  is  apt  to  prove  a  very  mechanical  one,  and  to  be 
somewhat  sterile  in  intellectual  result;  because  the  pupil  is 
much  more  concerned  with  the  length  and  shortness  of  the 
syllables,  than  with  their  meaning.  Similar  failure  would 
result  from  exercises  in  English  versification,  if  the  making  of 
rhymes,  or  the  use  of  difficult  metres  were  required.  But  when 
the  pupil  is  familiar  with  some  good  passages  from  Shake- 
speare, Milton,  and  Wordsworth,  and  has  caught  the  ring  and 
movement  of  the  English  heroic  measure,  it  is  worth  while  to 
draw  attention  to  the  conditions  which  render  that  measure 
musical  and  effective,  to  the  law  of  the  recurrent  accents,  and 
to  the  necessity  of  making  the  structure  of  the  thought,  and 
the  logical  arrangement  of  the  sentences  fit  in  with  the  struc- 
ture of  the  verse.  Then  it  is  a  good  exercise  to  give  a  subject, 
or  a  suitable  extract  from  a  book,  and  to  require  it  to  be  repro- 
duced in  blank  verse.  This  will  be  found  to  encourage  the 
choice  of  a  diction,  elevated  a  little  above  that  of  ordinary  life; 
to  give  practice  in  conciseness,  and  in  the  better  arrangement 
of  the  thoughts;  and  to  tune  the  car  to  a  truer  perception  not 
only  of  the  melody  of  verse,  but  also  of  that  of  rhythmical  prose. 
17 


258  The  English  Language. 

And  here  it  seems  fitting  to  make  some  reference  to  English 
The  studv        Literature  as  a  branch  of  school  instruction.    This 

of  English        is  a  comparatively  new  ingredient  introduced  of 
Literature.        ,  ,  .   ,     ,-,         ,      , 

late  years  into  the  school  course,  and  largely  en- 
couraged, and  almost  enforced  by  the  influence  of  the  Local 
and  other  University  Examinations.  A  play  of  Shakespeare, 
or  a  part  of  Paradise  Lost  is  taken  as  a  theme,  and  read  criti- 
cally. In  order  to  do  this  well  several  things  are  necessary: 
(1)  To  explain  and  trace  to  their  origin  all  difficult  and -archaic 
words,  (2)  To  hunt  out  all  the  historical  and  other  allusions, 
(3)  To  elucidate  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  the  book  as  a 
whole,  (4)  To  analyze,  paraphrase,  and  learn  by  heart,  choice 
and  characteristic  passages,  (5)  To  know  something  of  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  was  written,  and  the  relation  in 
which  it  stands,  not  only  to  the  author's  other  writings,  but  to 
the  literature  of  the  period,  and  (6)  To  examine  its  style, 
and  discover  its  merits  or  peculiarities  as  a  work  of  literary 
art. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  reading  of  any  one  of  the 
How  to  masterpieces  of  our  literature  in  this  way  is  a 

study  the         very  valuable  and  awakening  exercise,  and  that 

iivistcr- 

pieces  of  rightly  conducted  it  docs  much  both  to  inform  the 
pupil,  and  also,  to  cultivate  literary  taste  and  a 
love  of  reading.  But  I  think  it  essential  if  you  would  do  this 
effectually,  that  you  should  not  treat  the  book  you  are  dealing 
with  merely  as  something  which  has  to  be  analyzed,  commented 
on,  and  picked  to  pieces;  but  also  as  a  work  of  genius  which 
has  to  be  studied  as  a  whole,  and  which  the  pupil  must  learn  to 
appreciate  as  a  whole.  Before  beginning  to  read  the  selected 
book  piecemeal,  the  time  of  one  lesson  may  be  well  devoted  to 
a  general  and  uncritical  reading  of  the  whole  through,  simply 
with  a  view  to  show  the  scholar  what  it  is  about,  and  to  kindle 
some  interest  in  it  for  itself,  and  not  as  a  lesson.  A  very  skil- 
ful teacher  of  this  subject  complained  to  me  that  this  was  too 
often  neglected,  that  pupils  were  invited  to  give  their  whole 
attention  to  the  philological,  historical,  and  antiquarian  details, 


Study  of  Literary  Master-pieces.  259 

which  were  supposed  to  be  useful  in  examinations,  and  that  in 
this  way  all  the  enjoyment  of  the  flavor  and  style  of  a  book,  as 
a  great  work  of  art,  became  impossible. 

Indeed  the  complaint  is  not  unfrequently  made,  that  the 
habit  of  treating  Macbeth  or  Comus  as  a  lesson,  taking  it  to 
pieces  and  putting  them  together  again  like  a  puzzle,  is  rather 
lowering  and  vulgarizing  in  its  effect,  and  calculated  to  destroy 
the  freshness  and  interest  with  which  the  reader  enjoys  the 
book  for  its  own  sake.  Now,  this  result  is  no  doubt  possible, 
but  if  it  arises,  I  am  sure  it  comes  from  bad  and  unskilful 
teaching. 

It  is  surely  a  little  inconsistent  on  the  part  of  scholars,  who 
profess  to  have  formed  their  own  literary  taste  by  the  close 
study  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics,  and  who  do  not  admit 
that  all  the  school  exercises,  the  grammar,  and  the  versification, 
have  deadened  their  admiration  for  the  beauties  of  Virgil  and 
Homer,  to  say  as  they  sometimes  do  that  the  study  in  an  analo- 
gous way  of  an  English  poet  tends  to  deprave  the  literary 
taste,  and  to  give  disagreeable  associations  with  our  own 
classics.  It  would  be  truer  to  say,  An  Englishman  can  get 
discipline  in  taste  and  expression  from  reading  Homer  criti- 
cally, although  the  language  is  ancient  and  unfamiliar.  He 
ought  also  to  get  a  like  advantage  from  reading  Shakespeare 
or  Burke,  though  the  language  in  which  they  wrote  is  his  own. 
It  is  because  English  is  our  vernacular  that  a  fuller  knowledge 
of  Shakespeare  than  of  Homer  is  possible  to  an  Englishman; 
and  we  should  therefore  set  ourselves  to  attain  it. 

Listen  here  to  a  passage  from  one  of  Dr.  Arnold's  letters. 

"  My  delight  in  going  over  Homer  and  Virgil  with  the  boys  makes  me 
think  what  a  treat  it  must  be  to  teach  Shakespeare  to  a  good  class  of 
young  Greeks  in  regenerate  Athens,  to  dwell  upon  him  line  by  line,  and 
word  by  word,  in  the  way  that  nothing  but  a  translation  lesson  ever  will 
enable  one  to  do,  and  so  to  get  all  his  pictures  and  thoughts  leisurely 
into  one's  mind,  till  I  verily  think  one  would  after  a  time  almost  give 
out  light  in  the  dark,  after  having  been  steeped  as  it  were  in  such  an 
atmosphere  of  brilliance.  And  how  could  this  ever  be  done  without 
having  the  power  of  construing,  as  the  proper  medium  through  which 


260  The  English  Language. 

alone  all  the  beauty  can  be  transmitted?  because  else  we  travel  too  fast 
and  more  than  half  of  it  escapes  us." 

There  is  here,  as  you  see,  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the 
slow  process  of  construing,  translating,  and  analyzing  line  by 
line,  is,  in  the  case  of  an  author  whose  works  are  in  a  foreign 
language,  very  helpful  to  true  literary  insight  and  enjoyment. 
No  doubt  classic  authors  may  be  taught  in  so  dull  and  soulless 
a  way  that  pupils  attach  very  unpleasant  associations  to  the 
great  names  of  antiquity,  and  their  interest  in  them  is  perma- 
nently deadened.  But  no  one  who  has  ever  had  the  good 
fortune  to  read  a  play  of  ^Eschylus  or  a  book  of  the  ^Eneid 
with  a  thoroughly  sympathetic  teacher  can  doubt  that  Arnold 
is  right,  and  that  the  literary  and  moral  beauties  of  the  writer, 
his  images  and  pictures,  may  be  thoroughly  appreciated  in  the 
process  of  translation  and  analysis. 

And  if  this  be  so  with  ancient  writers,  why  not  with  our 
Critical  own?  The  faculty  of  criticism  does  not  destroy 

analysis  the  power  of  enjoyment  in  the  case  of  an  oratorio 

tive  oflite?"  or  a  great  painting.  On  the  contrary,  it  greatly 
rary  enjoy-  heightens  it.  It  is  the  instructed  man,  whose  per- 
ceptions have  been  trained  to  discern  the  differ- 
ence between  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad,  and  to  know  why 
one  thing  is  good  and  another  bad,  who  gets  the  most  pleasure 
from  the  contemplation  of  a  work  of  art.1  And  when  we  are 
taught  to  dwell  on  the  exquisite  fitness  with  which  a  great 
author  has  chosen  his  epithets,  the  appropriateness  of  his 
imagery,  or  the  rhythm  and  balance  of  his  sentences,  all  this  is 


1  "It  is  not  the  eye  that  sees  the  beauties  of  the  heaven,  nor  the  ear 
that  hears  the  sweetness  of  music,  or  the  glad  tidings  of  a  prosperous 
accident,  but  the  soul  that  perceives  all  the  relishes  of  sensual  and 
intellectual  perceptions;  and  the  more  noble  and  excellent  the  soul  is 
the  greater  and  more  savory  are  its  perceptions.  And  if  a  child  be- 
holds the  rich  ermine,  or  the  diamonds  of  a  starry  night,  or  the  order  of 
the  world,  or  hears  the  discourses  of  an  apostle;  because  he  makes  no 
reflex  acts  upon  himself,  and  sees  not  that  he  sees,  he  can  have  but  the 
pleasure  of  a  fool  or  the  deliciousness  of  a  mule."— JEREMY  TAYLOB. 


Cultivation  of  Literary  Taste.  261 

clear  gain  to  us,  and  I  do  not  see  why  any  of  that  literary  sensi- 
bility which  comes  from  the  sympathetic  reading  of  a  good 
book  merely  for  our  own  delight  should  be  sacrificed  to  it.  Of 
course  we  must  not  be  challenging  admiration,  or  leading  the 
pupil  to  express  a  pleasure  which  he  does  not  feel.  Still  less 
must  we  fall  into  the  ignoble  habit  of  reading  such  a  book  with 
a  view  to  examination  only.  It  is  however  a  great  mistake  to 
suppose  that  intelligence  and  perception  are  of  less  value  in  an 
examination  than  a  few  technical  facts  and  dates.  Nothing  is 
more  welcome  to  a  good  examiner  than  the  discovery  of  any 
proof  of  originality  or  critical  power,  of  strong  opinion,  or 
honest  admiration,  provided  it  goes  with  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  substance  of  the  book  which  is  learned.  The  one  thing 
which  maddens  an  examiner  is  the  mere  routine  of  the  text- 
books, the  conventional  critical  judgments  of  the  lecture-room 
mechanically  reproduced,  the  use  of  second-hand  estimates  of 
books  which  the  candidate  has  evidently  never  read.  And  so 
I  would  urge  on  you,  when  you  have  before  you  the  two  ob- 
jects, first  of  enabling  your  pupil  to  understand  and  intelli- 
gently to  admire  an  English  classic;  and  then  of  enabling  him 
also  to  get  some  credit  for  his  knowledge  at  an  examination: 
keep  the  larger  and  the  nobler  aim  before  you;  disregard  the 
second;  and  be  sure  nevertheless  that  this  is  the  best  way  of 
attaining  the  second.  There  is  not  and  ought  not  to  be  any 
real  inconsistency  between  the  two  purposes. 

With  young  students,  the  thorough  and  searching  investiga- 
tion of  one  or  two  fruitful  books  is  of  more  value  The  history 
than  lessons  in  what  is  called  the  histoiy  of  of  uterature. 
literature.  Of  course  it  is  desirable  that  the  scholar  should 
know  the  names  of  the  greatest  writers,  when  they  lived,  and 
what  they  wrote.  But  there  is  a  certain  unreality — almost 
dishonesty — in  the  mere  appropriation  of  other  men's  opinions 
about  books  before  we  have  read  them.  After  all,  the  best 
study  of  literature  is  to  be  found  in  literature  itself,  and  not  in 
what  compilers  of  manuals  have  said  about  it.  We  are  here 
especially  bound  to  keep  clear  of  all  confusion  between  means 


262  The  English  Language. 

and  ends.  What  is  the  end  which  we  propose  to  ourselves  in 
all  lessons  on  literature?  It  is  to  produce  a  permanent  appetite 
for  reading,  a  power  of  discriminating  what  is  good  from  what 
is  bad,  and  a  conscious  preference  for  it.  "  What  a  heaven," 
says  Bishop  Hall,  "lives  a  scholar  in,  that  at  once  and  in  one 
close  room  can  daily  converse  with  all  the  glorious  writers  and 
fathers,  and  single  them  out  at  pleasure!  To  find  wit  in  poetry, 
in  philosophy  profoundness,  in  mathematics  acuteness,  in  his- 
tory wonder  of  events,  in  oratory  sweet  eloquence,  in  divinity 
supernatural  delight  and  holy  devotion,  as  so  many  rich  metals 
in  their  proper  mines,  whom  would  it  not  ravish  with  delight?" 
Now  of  course  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  you  to  con- 
True  purpose  vey  to  young  learners  anything  like  this  scholarly 
Enlfiish'iiter-  enthusiasm.  But  if  your  teaching  of  literature  is 
ature.  good  and  sound,  it  ought  to  convey  at  least  the 

germ  of  such  enthusiasm  into  a  good  proportion  of  the  minds 
with  which  you  deal.  And  this  is  the  true  test  of  your  success 
in  this  department.  For  if  your  scholars  do  not  acquire  a  posi- 
tive love  for  reading,  if  they  do  not  ask  to  be  allowed  to  read 
the  whole  book  or  poem  of  which  the  extract  you  take  as  a 
lesson  forms  a  part;  if  you  do  not  find  them  voluntarily  hunt- 
ing in  the  library  for  the  other  works  of  some  author  whom 
you  have  tried  to  make  them  admire;  if  they  do  not  feel  a 
heightened  admiration  for  what  is  noblest  and  truest  in  litera- 
ture, and  an  increasing  distaste  for  what  is  poor  and  flimsy  and 
sensational,  then  be  sure  that  there  must  be  something  in- 
curably wrong  in  your  method  of  teaching,  and  that  all  your 
apparatus  of  grammar,  paraphrase,  and  logical  and  grammati- 
cal analysis,  will  have  failed  to  fulfil  its  purpose. 


Why  Arithmetic  Should  be  Taught.        263 


X.    ARITHMETIC  AS  AN  ART. 

BEFORE  asking  how  we  should  teach  Arithmetic  it  may  be 
well  to  ask  for  a  moment  why  we  should  teach  it  ^,  Arittl_  > 
at  all.  There  are  two  conceivable  objects  in  metic  should 
teaching  any  subject.  (1)  Because  the  thing  etau&  *• 
taught  is  necessary,  or  useful,  and  may  be  turned  to  practical 
account,  or  (2)  Because  the  incidental  effect  of  teaching  it  is  to 
bring  into  play  and  exercise  certain  powers  and  capabilities, 
and  so  to  serve  a  real  educational  purpose.  As  we  have  seen, 
some  things  we  teach  are  justifiable  on  the  one,  and  some  on 
the  other  of  these  grounds.  And  it  behoves  us  all,  whatever 
be  the  subject  we  teach,  to  make  sure  which  of  these  two  pur- 
poses we  are  aiming  at.  For  if  lessons  on  any  subject  are  not 
valuable,  either  for  their  obvious  practical  uses  or  for  their 
disciplinal  effect  on  the  general  power  and  capacity  of  the 
pupil,  there  is  no  justification  for  teaching  that  subject  at  all. 

But  of  Arithmetic  we  may  safely  say  at  the  outset,  that  if 
rightly  taught,  it  is  well  calculated  to  fulfil  both   „  th 
purposes.     Its  rules  become  of  real  service  in   Art  and  a 
helping  us  to  solve  the  problems  of  daily  life;  and 
its  laws  and  principles,  if  rightly  investigated,  serve  to  set  par- 
ticular mental  faculties  in  operation,  and  so  to  further  the  im- 
provement and  development  of  the  learner.     It  is  conspicu- 
ously one  of  those  subjects  of  school  instruction  the  purpose  of 
which  extends  beyond  itself.     Its  ideas  and  processes  can  be 
effectively  applied  to  other  regions  of  knowledge.     You  can- 
not measure  its  intellectual  usefulness  by  looking  only  at  its 
immediate  aims.     It  is,  in  fact,  both  an  Art  and  a  Science: — 
an  Art  because  it  contemplates  the  doing  of  actual  work,  the 


264  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

attainment  of  definite  and  useful  results;  a  Science  because  it 
investigates  principles,  because  he  who  unearths  the  truths 
which  underlie  the  rules  of  Arithmetic,  is  being  exercised,  not 
merely  in  the  attainment  of  a  particular  kind  of  truth  about 
numbers,  but  in  the  processes  by  which  truth  of  many  other 
kinds  is  to  be  investigated  and  attained. 

Now  it  is  unnecessary  to  remind  you  that  of  these  two  as- 
Oftenre-  pects  or  uses  of  Arithmetic,  the  former  is  that 
garded  as  an  which  we  usually  associate  with  the  name.  It  is 
ire^'  not  reasoning  about  numbers,  but  using  figures 
for  the  purpose  of  calculation  and  working  out  sums,  that  we 
generally  understand  by  the  study  of  Arithmetic  in  schools.  A 
text-book  of  Arithmetic  is  often  a  book  of  exercises  and  prob- 
lems, and  nothing  more.  We  all  remember  Goldsmith's 
schoolmaster,  of  whom  it  was  said  that 

"Lands  he  could  measure,  terms  and  tides  presage, 
And  even  the  story  ran  that  he  could  gauge." 

Such  a  pedagogue,  who  could  do  sums  of  surprising  length 
and  intricacy,  and  set  them  down  in  beautiful  figures  in  a 
book  duly  garnished  with  flourishes,  passed  then  for  the  good 
arithmetician.  The  scholar  who  could  work  out  the  largest 
number  of  problems  by  the  shortest  and  most  dexterous 
methods  was  the  winner  of  all  the  prizes,  and  so  long  as  he 
produced  right  answers,  the  extent  to  which  he  had  under- 
stood the  processes  he  employed  was  a  matter  of  small  con- 
cern. 

No  doubt  this  notion  of  the  place  Arithmetic  should  hold  in 
school-work,  and  of  the  object  to  be  attained  in  teaching  it,  is 
still  very  prevalent.  But  it  was  not  always  so.  Arithmetic, 
as  taught  in  the  schools  of  Athens  or  Alexandria;  to  the  con- 
temporaries of  Socrates  and  Alcibiades;  or  later,  when  in  the 
Middle  Ages  it  shared  with  logic,  geometry,  grammar  and 
rhetoric  and  music  the  distinction  of  forming  one  of  the  staple 
subjects  of  a  liberal  education,  was  taught  in  its  principles,  as 
a  logical  discipline;  as  something  to  be  understood  rather  than 


Robert  Recorders  Arithmetick.  265 

as  a  series  of  devices  for  working  out  problems.  It  was  how- 
ever often  mixed  up  with  some  wholly  unsound  and  indefen- 
sible theories  about  the  mystic  properties  of  certain  numbers; 
and  numerical  relations  were  supposed  to  furnish  the  key  to 
certain  moral  and  spiritual  questions,  with  which  we  now 
think  they  have  nothing  to  do. 

It  is  interesting  to  turn  to  the  oldest  treatise  in  Arithmetic  in 
our  language  and,  to  see  the  spirit  in  which  the  subject  was 
treated. 

In  Robert  Recorde's  AritJimetick,  or  the  Gfrounde  of  Artes, 

dedicated  to  Edward  VI.,  we  have  the  first  sue-   „  , 

Robert 

cessf ul  attempt  to  popularize  the  vstudy  of  the  Recorde's 
"  Algorithmic  science,"  as  it  was  then  called,  in       : 
England.     It  is  written  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue,  for,  as  the 
author  quaintly  says  in   his  Preface,  "I  judge  that  to  be  the 
easiest  way  of  instruction,  when  the  scholar  may  aske  any 
doubts  orderly,  and  the  master  may  answer  to  his  question 
plainly."    Accordingly,  the  book  opens  thus: 

Scholar.  "  Sir,  such  is  your  authority  in  mine  estimation,  that  I  am 
content  to  consent  to  your  saying,  and  to  receive  it  as  truth,  though  I 
see  none  other  reason  that  doth  lead  me  thereunto:  whereas  else  in 
mine  owne  conceite  it  appeareth  but  vaine  to  bestowe  anie  time  pri- 
vately on  that  which  every  childe  may  and  doth  learne  at  all  times  and 
hours. 

Master.  Lo,  this  is  the  fashion  and  chance  of  all  them  that  seeke  to 
defend  their  blind  ignorance,  that  when  they  think  they  have  made 
strong  reason  for  themselves,  then  have  they  proved  quite  the  con- 
trary." 

He  goes  on  to  vindicate  his  favorite  study,  and  to  show  its. 
importance;  and  the  docile  pupil,  whose  function  it  is  through- 
out the  work  to  exhibit  constant  wonder  and  delight  at  the 
revelation  of  each  new  rule,  soon  expresses  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject, and  is  conducted  through  the  science  in  a  spirit  and 
temper  which  cannot  be  too  much  admired,  if  we  may  take 
the  following  fragment  as  an  example: 

"Scholar.  Truly,  Sir,  these  excellent  conclusions  do  wonderfully 
make  me  more  and  more  in  love  with  the  art. 


266  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

Master.  It  is  an  art,  that  the  further  you  travell  the  more  you  thirst 
to  goe  on  forward.  Such  a  fountaine,  that  the  more  you  draw  the  more 
It  springes;  and  to  speake  absolutely  in  a  word  (excepting  the  study  of 
divinity  which  is  the  salvation  of  our  souls),  there  is  no  study  in  the 
world  comparable  to  this,  for  delight  in  wonderfull  and  godly  exercise: 
for  the  skill  hereof  is  well  known  immediately  to  have  flowed  from  the 
•wisdom  of  God  into  the  hearts  of  man,  whom  he  hath  created  the 
chiefe  image  and  instrument  of  his  praise  and  glorie. 

S.  The  desire  of  knowledge  doth  greatly  incourage  me  to  be  studious 
herein,  and  therefore  I  pray  you  cease  not  to  instnuct  me  further  in  the 
use  thereof. 

M.  With  a  good  will,  and  now  therefore  for  the  further  use  of  these 
two  latter  (multiplication  and  division)  the  seat  of  reduction." 

In  this  way  master  and  pupil  proceeded  amicably  together 
through  integral  and  fractional  Arithmetic,  only  pausing  now 
and  then  to  congratulate  one  another,  and  to  offer  devout 
thanksgivings  to  God  for  the  beauty  of  the  science,  and  for  its 
marvellous  uses.  Recorde  subsequently  published  an  advanced 
treatise,  entitled  the  "  Whetstone  of  Witte,  containing  the  ex- 
traction of  roots,  the  Cossike  practice,  with  the  rule  of  equa- 
tions, and  the  woorks  of  surd  numbers."  This  book  contains 
an  admirable  summary  for  the  period,  of  the  chief  rules  for  the 
manipulation  of  algebraic  quantities;  but  throughout  both 
books  it  is  the  intellectual  exercise,  not  the  useful  application, 
which  seems  to  the  author  to  be  of  chief  interest  and  import- 
ance. 

It  must  be  owned  however  that  if  early  writers  thought  little 
of  the  practical  usefulness  of  the  applications  of  Arithmetic  our 
immediate  ancestors  and  many  of  our  contemporaries  have 
,  thought  of  these  practical  applications  almost  exclusively. 
Since  Recorde's  time  the  majority  of  authors— from  Cocker, 
and  Wingate,  and  Vyse,  and  Dilworth,  to  Walkinghame  and 
Colenso — have  treated  Arithmetic  from  the  utilitarian  point  of 
view  exclusively.  Their  books  give  few  or  no  demonstrations 
of  the  theory  of  numbers,  but  are  filled  with  what  are  called 
commercial  rules.  There  are  tare  and  tret,  alligation,  foreign 
exchanges,  partnership  with  time,  partnership  without  time 
(whatever  that  may  mean),  bills  of  parcels,  the  chain  rule,  a 


Place  of  Arithmetic  Among  School  Studies.  267 

new  method  of  finding  the  cubic  contents  of  a  cask,  and  so 
forth.  The  goal  to  be  reached  in  the  teaching  of  arithmetic  is 
very  clearly  defined,  and  all  the  progress  towards  it  is  regulated 
accordingly.  The  successful  arithmetician  is  to  be  a  good 
computer,  a  skilful  tradesman,  a  land  surveyor,  or  an  excise- 
man; and  the  whole  object  of  the  art  is  to  fit  him  to  perform 
one  or  other  of  these  important  functions. 

"We  are  so  accustomed  to  hear  Arithmetic  spoken  of  as  one 
of   the    three   fundamental    ingredients    in   all   The  place  of 
schemes  of  instruction,  that  it  seems  like  inquir-   ^a  School 
ing  too  curiously  to  ask  why  this  should  be.    course. 
Beading,  Writing,  and  Arithmetic — these  three  are  assumed  to 
be  of  co-ordinate  rank.     Are  they  indeed  co-ordinate,  and  if 
so  on  what  ground  ? 

In  this  modern  "  trivium"  the  art  of  Reading  is  put  first. 
Well,  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  its  right  to  the  fore-   T 
most  place.     For  reading  is  the  instrument  of  all   poses  to  be 
our  acquisitions.     It  is  indispensable.     There  is 
not  an  hour  in  our  lives  in  which  it  does  not  make  a  great  dif- 
ference to  us  whether  we  can  read  or  not.    And  the  art  of  Writ- 
ing, too;  that  is  the  instrument  of  all  communication,  and  it 
becomes,  in  one  form  or  other,  useful  to  us  every  day.    But 
Counting — doing  sums, — how  often  in  life  does  this  accom- 
plishment come  into  exercise?    Beyond  the  simplest  additions 
and  the  power  to  check  the  items  of  a  bill,  the  arithmetical 
knowledge  required  of  any  well-informed  person  in  private  life 
is  very  limited.    For  all  practical  purposes,  whatever  I  may 
have  learned  at  school  of  fractions,  or  proportion,  or  decimals, 
is,  unless  I  happen  to  be  in  business,  far  less  frequently  avail- 
able to  me  in  life  than  a  knowledge,  say,  of  the  history  of  my 
own  country,  or  of  the  elementary  truths  of  physics.      The 
truth  is,  that  regarded  as  practical  arts,  reading,  writing,  and 
arithmetic  have  no  right  to  be  classed  together  as  co-ordinate 
elements  of  education;  for  the  last  of  these  is  considerably  less  \ 
useful  to  the  average  man  or  woman  not  only  than  the  other  ( 
two,  but  than  many  others  which  might  be  named.    But  read- 


268  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

ing,  writing,  and  such  mathematical  or  logical  exercise  as  may 
be  gained  in  connection  with  the  manipulation  of  numbers,  have 
a  right  to  constitute  the  primary  elements  of  instruction.  And 
I  believe  that  arithmetic,  if  it  deserves  the  high  place  that  it 
conventionally  holds  in  our  educational  system,  deserves  it 
mainly  on  the  ground  that  it  is  to  be  treated  as  a  logical  exer- 
cise. It  is  the  only  branch  of  mathematics  which  has  found 
its  way  into  primary  and  early  education;  other  departments  of 
pure  science  being  reserved  for  what  is  called  higher  or  uni- 
versity instruction.  But  all  the  arguments  in  favor  of  teaching 
algebra  and  trigonometry  to  advance  students,  apply  equally 
to  the  teaching  of  the  principles  or  theory  of  arithmetic  to 
school-boys.  It  is  calculated  to  do  for  them  exactly  the  same 
kind  of  service,  to  educate  one  side  of  their  minds,  to  bring  into 
play  one  set  of  faculties  which  cannot  be  so  severely  or  properly 
exercised  in  any  other  department  of  learning.  In  short,  rela- 
tively to  the  needs  of  a  beginner,  Arithmetic,  as  a  science,  is 
just  as  valuable  —  it  is  certainly  quite  as  intelligible  —  as  the 
higher  mathematics  to  a  university  student. 
It  is  probably  because  the  purely  utilitarian  or  practical  view 

of  school  Arithmetic  has  so  generally  prevailed  that 
Arithmetic        .  „         .    *       ,..,,,      , 

has  the  same    it  has  never  been  a  favorite  study  m  girls  schools. 

Mistresses,  as  a  rule,  do  not  take  a  strong  interest  in 


boy's  educa-  it,  or  seek  to  kindle  their  pupils'  enthusiasm  in  it. 
Girls  at  school  are,  if  not  actually  encouraged  to 
dislike  arithmetic,  apt  to  take  for  granted  that  it  is  rather  an  un- 
feminine  pursuit,  that  it  is  certainly  unnecessary,  and  probably 
vulgar.  And,  no  doubt,  if  the  conventional  notion  about  the  pur- 
pose of  Arithmetic  is  well  founded,  they  are  right.  If  ciphering 
means  a  collection  of  artifices  for  doing  sums;  if  the  great  object 
of  learning  the  art  is  to  be  fitted  for  the  counting-house  or  the 
shop,  then  the  instinct  which  makes  governesses  and  their  pupils 
shrink  from  Arithmetic  is  a  true  one.  But  if  Arithmetic  is  a 
study  capable  of  yielding  intellectual  fruit,  if  it  helps  to  quicken 
and  concentrate  the  attention,  to  bring  under  control  the  reason- 
ing faculty,  to  show  by  what  method  we  can  proceed  from  the 


Two  Main  Purposes  to  be  /Served.          269 

known  to  the  unknown,  to  enable  us  to  perceive  the  nature  of 
a  fallacy,  and  to  discriminate  the  two  sides  of  a  fine  line  by 
which  the  true  is  often  separated  from  the  false ;  if,  in  short, 
the  study  of  Arithmetic  is  mainly  helpful  in  showing  what  truth 
is,  and  by  what  methods  it  is  attained,  then  surely  it  bears  just 
as  close  a  relation  to  the  needs  of  a  woman's  life  as  to  those  of 
a  man.  For  she,  too,  has  intellectual  problems  to  solve,  books 
to  read,  and  opinions  to  form;  and  she  will  do  all  this  to  good 
purpose  in  just  the  proportion  which  she  brings  to  her  work  a 
trained  and  disciplined  understanding,  accustomed  to  analyze 
the  grounds  of  belief,  and  to  proceed  by  slow  and  careful  steps 
from  premises  to  inference. 
So  much  will  suffice  for  the  present  as  to  the  greater  purposes 

to  be  served  in  the  teaching  of  Arithmetic.     But   „ 

.  The  practi- 

the  lesser  purpose  is  not  insignificant,  and  must   cal  side  of 

not  be  overlooked.  It  is  no  slight  thing  to  be  a  Arithmetic- 
good  computer,  and  to  know  how  to  apply  arithmetical  rules 
deftly  and  accurately  to  the  management  of  an  income,  to  the 
conduct  of  business,  to  statistics,  to  averages,  to  scientific  and 
political  data,  and  to  the  manifold  problems  which  life  pre- 
sents. And  even  though  the  higher  aims  of  Arithmetic  are  al- 
together overlooked,  it  cannot  be  said  that  time  is  wasted  in 
achieving  the  lower  aim.  So  much  of  arithmetical  knowledge 
as  is  fairly  tested  by  setting  sums  to  be  worked,  and  as  is  re- 
quired in  order  to  work  them  promptly  and  accurately,  is  well 
worth  attaining.  Its  relative  importance  to  genuine  mathe- 
matical training  may  be,  and  often  has  been,  exaggerated,  but 
of  its  absolute  importance  there  can  be  little  question. 

Thus  then  the  two  distinct  uses  of  Arithmetic,  (1)  Its  direct 
or  practical  use  as  an  instrument  for  the  solution  of  problems, 
and  (2)  Its  indirect  or  scientific  use  as  a  means  of  calling  out  the 
reasoning  faculty,  require  to  be  separately  apprehended,  and  I 
am  intending  to  ask  you  to-day  to  look  at  the  first,  and  in  my 
next  lecture  at  the  second,  and  to  inquire  how  each  of  the  two 
objects  thus  to  be  kept  in  view  can  be  best  fulfilled.  Of  course 
two  objects  may  be  logically  separable,  and  for  purposes  of  dis- 


2YO  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

cussion  here  may  be  treated  apart,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact  they 
are  pursued  together.  In  attaining  either  object  you  cannot  help 
doing  something  towards  the  attainment  of  the  other.  For  you 
cannot  teach  practical  arithmetic,  even  by  mere  rule  of  thumb, 
without  giving  some  useful  intellectual  discipline;  and  you  can- 
not make  the  theory  and  laws  of  Arithmetic  clear  to  a  boy's 
understanding  without  also  giving  him  some  serviceable  rules 
for  practical  use.  Still  we  may  with  advantage  treat  the  two 
purposes  of  Arithmetic  separately,  and  at  present  ask  ourselves 
only  how  to  teach  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 
A  really  good  computer  is  characterized  by  three  qualities — 

promptitude,  perfect  accuracy,  and  that  skill  or 
Computation.    *  *  * 

flexibility  of  mind  which  enables  him  at  once  to 

seize  upon  the  real  meaning  of  a  question,  and  to  apply  the 
best  method  to  its  solution.  How  are  these  qualities  best  to  be 
attained? 

Now  the  first  thing  necessary  to  be  borne  in  mind  is  the  fa- 
Early  exer-  miliar  truth,  that  a  child's  earliest  notions  of  num- 
crete  "not"  ^3er  are  concrete,  not  abstract.  He  knows  what 
abstract.  three  roses  or  three  chairs  mean  before  he  can 
make  abstraction  of  the  number  3  as  a  separate  entity.  Hence 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  earliest  exercises  in  counting  should  take 
the  form  of  counting  actual  objects.  For  this  purpose  the  ball- 
frame  or  abacus  is  generally  employed,  and  with  great  advan- 
tage. He  should  count  also  the  objects  in  the  room,  the  panes 
of  glass  in  the  window,  a  handful  of  pebbles,  the  pictures  on 
the  wall,  and  the  number  of  scholars  in  the  class.  It  must  not 
be  set  down  as  a  fault  if  at  first  he  counts  with  his  fingers.  Let 
him  do  so  by  all  means  if  he  likes.  The  faculty  of  abstracting 
numbers,  and  of  learning  to  do  without  visible  and  tangible 
illustrations  comes  more  slowly  to  some  children  than  others. 
So  long  as  they  get  the  answer  right,  let  them  have  what  help 
they  want  till  this  power  comes.  It  is  sure  to  come  ere  long. 
At  first,  too,  the  little  questions  and  problems  which  are  given 
to  children  may  fitly  refer  to  marbles  or  apples,  or  to  things 
which  are  familiar  to  them.  But  the  mistake  made  by  many 


The  Discipline  of  an  Arithmetic  Class.     271 

teachers  is  to  continue  using  these  artifices  too  long;  to  go  on 
showing  an  abacus,  or  talking  about  nuts  and  oranges  after  the 
children  have  fully  grasped  the  meaning  of  6  +  5  in  the  ab- 
stract, and  are  well  able  to  do  without  visible  help.  It  is  a  sure 
test  of  a  good  teacher  that  he  knows  when  and  how  far  to  em- 
ploy such  artifices,  and  when  to  dispense  with  them.  The 
moment  that  concrete  illustrations  have  served  their  purpose, 
they  should  be  discarded. 

Remember  also  that  Arithmetic  is  one  of  the  lessons  in  which 
discipline  is  more  important  than  in  any  other.  strjct 
The  amount  of  order  and  drill  which  may  suffice  discipline 
for  a  good  lesson  in  reading  or  geography  will 
not  suffice  for  arithmetic.  Undetected  prompting  and  copying 
are  easier  in  this  subject  than  in  any  other,  and  they  are  more 
fatal  to  real  progress.  It  is  important  that  in  computing  a 
scholar  should  learn  to  rely  on  the  accuracy  of  his  own  work. 
If  he  has  any  access  to  the  answer,  and  works  consciously  to- 
wards it;  if  he  can  get  a  whispered  word  or  a  surreptitious 
figure  to  guide  him,  the  work  is  not  his  own,  and  he  is  learning 
little  or  nothing.  It  is  therefore  essential  that  your  discipline 
should  be  such,  that  copying  or  friendly  suggestion  during  the 
working  of  a  sum  shall  be  impossible.  It  is  idle,  in  this  con- 
nection, to  talk  of  honor.  The  sense  that  it  is  dishonorable  to 
avail  one's  self  of  any  such  chance  help  as  comes  in  one's  way 
in  solving  a  problem  is,  after  all,  only  a  late  product  of  moral 
training.  You  do  not  presuppose  its  existence  in  grown  men 
at  the  universities,  who  are  undergoing  examinations  for  de- 
grees, or  even  for  Holy  Orders.  You  have  no  right  to  assume 
its  presence  in  the  minds  of  little  children.  They  will  at  first 
copy  from  one  another  without  the  smallest  consciousness  that 
there  is  any  harm  in  it.  After  all  there  is  nothing  immoral  in 
copying  until  we  have  shown  it  to  be  so.  It  is  inconvenient  to 
us,  of  course,  and  it  happens  to  be  inconsistent  with  genuine 
progress  in  Arithmetic,  and  it  is  for  these  reasons  that  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  stop  it.  The  truth  is  that  if  you  want  to 
tram  children  in  the  habit  of  doing  their  own  work  well,  and 


272  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

depending  on  its  accuracy,  you  must  do  habitually  that  which 
is  done  at  all  public  examinations— make  copying  impossible. 
And  this  may  be  done  by  divers  expedients,  e.g.  by  giving  dif- 
ferent exercises  to  scholars  as  they  sit  alternately,  so  that  no 
two  who  are  together  shall  have  the  same  sum,  or  by  placing 
them  in  proper  attitudes,  and  at  needful  distances,  and  under 
vigilant  supervision. 

Again  I  suggest  that  a  good  many  sums  should  be  given  out 
Exercises  in  words,  not  in  figures.  Remember  that  the 
uTwords!  actual  questions  of  life  are  not  presented  to  us  in 
not  figures.  the  shape  of  sums,  but  in  another  form  which  we 
have  to  translate  into  sums,  and  that  this  business  of  translat- 
ing the  question  out  of  the  ordinary  form  into  the  form  adopted 
in  the  arithmetic  books  is  often  harder  than  the  working  of  the 
sum  itself;  e.g.,  take  3018  from  10,000.  In  an  ill-taught  school 
a  child  is  puzzled  by  this;  he  first  asks  what  rule  it  is  in.  He 
next  asks  how  to  set  it  down.  Both  of  these  are  questions 
which  he  ought  to  answer  for  himself. 

So  long  as  a  pupil  finds  any  difficulty  whatever  hi  recognizing 
an  exercise  in  a  given  rule,  under  any  guise,  however  un- 
familiar, be  sure  he  does  not  understand  that  rule,  and  ought 
not  to  quit  it  for  a  higher. 

It  is  a  very  useful  aid  to  this  sort  of  versatility  or  readiness, 
not  only  to  practise  yourselves  as  teachers  in  the  manufacture 
of  new  exercises,  but  also  to  encourage  your  pupils  to  invent 
new  questions  on  each  rule  before  you  pass  from  it  to  the  next. 
You  will  find  a  pupil's  grasp  of  the  real  meaning  and  relations 
of  an  arithmetical  rule  much  strengthened  by  the  habit  of  fram- 
ing new  questions.  Moreover  you  will  find  it  a  very  popular 
and  interesting  exercise,  which  will  kindle  a  good  deal  of  spirit 
and  animation  in  your  class. 

Never  permit  any  reference  to  be  made  to  the  answer  while 

Answers  to       *ne  wor^-  *s  m  progress.    It  would  be  a  good  thing 

be  kept  out       if  the  printed  answers  to  arithmetical  questions 

could  be  concealed  from  pupils  altogether.    But  I 

fear  this  is  impossible.    At  any  rate,  teachers  should  be  on  their 


Invention  of  Exercises.  273 

guard  against  the  tendency  of  children  before  they  get  to  the 
end  of  the  sum  to  glance  furtively  at  the  answer,  and  to  work 
towards  it.  Perhaps  if  the  right  answer  is  evidently  not  com- 
ing the  pupil  alters  a  figure,  or  introduces  a  new  multiplier  in 
order  to  bring  it  right.  But  a  sum  so  wrought  is  a  very  un- 
satisfactory and  delusive  performance. 

It  is  well  at  first  rather  to  give  a  good  number  of  short  ex- 
ercises irregularly  formed,  than  to  use  those  large   Numerous 

symmetrical  masses  of  figures,  which  the  school-   short  exer- 
*  cises  prefer- 

books  are  apt  to  give  us,  and  which  are  so  much   able  to  a  few 

more  convenient  to  the  teacher,  inasmuch  as  they  ong  ones' 
take  a  good  deal  of  time,  and  leave  him  a  little  more  breathing 
space.  A  large  square  addition  sum,  in  which  all  the  lines  are 
of  the  same  length,  and  all  extend  to  hundreds  of  millions,  is 
far  less  likely  to  be  useful  than  "  Add  seventeen  to  a  hundred 
and  twenty,  that  to  three  thousand  and  ninety-six,  that  to 
twenty-seven,  and  that  to  five."  Many  children  in  fact  who 
can  do  the  first  will  be  unable  to  do  the  second.  Now  and 
then,  however,  it  is  a  good  thing  to  give  a  very  long  exercise, 
to  test  sustained  attention  and  continuity  of  thought,  and  to  in- 
sure accuracy. 

It  is  good  also  to  take  care  that  before  proceeding  to  any  new 
rule,  you  give  a  few  exercises,  which  call  out  not  Recapitula- 
alone  the  previous  rule,  but  all  the  preceding  tion- 
rules.     There  is  no  true  progress  if  any  one  of  the  elementary 
rules  is  allowed  to  drop  out  of  sight. 

I  am  often  struck  with  the  want  of  skill  shown  in  making 
sure  at  each  step  that  all  previous  steps  are  understood.  This 
arises  no  doubt  from  the  way  in  which  exercises  are  arranged 
in  books,  grouped  under  the  heads  of  the  various  rules.  A 
child  gets  a  rule,  works  a  number  of  sums  all  alike,  and  then 
leaves  to  go  on  to  another.  Whereas  exercises  ought  to  be  so 
graduated  and  sums  so  carefully  framed  as  to  bring  into  play 
all  that  has  previously  been  learned,  and  to  fix  and  fasten  the 
memory  of  former  rules.  There  is  hardly  any  one  text-book 
which  I  know  that  does  this  sufficiently.  You  should  be  sup- 
18 


274  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

plied  always  therefore  with  a  number  of  miscellaneous  exer- 
cises, which  you  give  the  scholars  from  a  book  or  manuscript 
of  your  own,  and  which  they  do  not  know  to  be  illustrative  of 
any  special  rule. 

Making  out  a  fair  copy  of  a  sum  in  a  book,  garnished  with 
Writing  out      ruled  red  ink  lines  and  flourishes,  is  a  favorite  em- 
sums  in  ployment  in  some  schools,  and  consumes  a  good 
books  not  ,     • 
of  much          deal  of  time.     It  has  its  utility,  of  course,  as  an 

exercise  in  neatness  and  arrangement,  and  in  the 
mere  writing  of  figures.  Moreover,  it  is  liked  by  some  teachers 
because  it  pleases  parents,  and  is  the  only  visible  evidence  of 
arithmetical  progress  which  can  be  appreciated  at  home.  Yet 
as  a  device  for  increasing  or  strengthening  a  child's  arithmetical 
knowledge  it  is  very  useless.  I  venture  to  warn  you,  there- 
fore, against  the  inordinate  use  of  what  are  called  "  ciphering 
books;"  believing,  as  I  do,  that  in  just  the  proportion  in  which 
you  teach  Arithmetic  intelligently,  you  will  learn  to  rely  less  on 
such  mechanical  devices. 

It  will  be  well  for  us  to  consider,   too,   what   use   it   is 
Oral  or  which  a  pupil  makes  of  a  slate  or  a  paper  when 

mental  he  is  working  a  sum.     The  object  of  all  rules 

is,  of  course,  to  show  how  a  long  or  complex 
problem,  which  cannot  be  worked  by  a  single  effort  of  the  mind, 
may  be  resolved  into  a  number  of  separate  problems  each 
simple  enough  to  be  so  wrought.  As  each  separate  result 
in  multiplication,  division,  or  addition  is  thus  attained,  we  set 
it  down  as  a  help  to  the  memory,  and  are  thus  at  liberty  to  go 
on  to  the  next.  Now  it  is  evident  that  the  worth  and  accuracy 
of  the  general  result  depend  upon  the  correctness  with  which 
we  work  out  each  of  these  single  items.  It  is  a  good  plan, 
therefore,  to  give  a  pupil  some  oral  practice  in  the  manipula- 
tion of  single  numbers,  before  setting  him  down  to  work  a  sum. 
This  Oral  or  Mental  Arithmetic  has  long  been  a  favorite  ex- 
ercise in  elementary  schools,  but  it  has  not  been  very  generally 
adopted  in  schools  of  a  higher  class.  One  reason  for  this  is  to 
be  found  in  the  very  restricted  and  technical  use  made  of  the 


Oral  or  Mental  Arithmetic.  2V5 

exercise.  In  manuals  of  Mental  Arithmetic,  advantage  is 
taken  of  little  accidental  facilities  or  resemblances  afforded  by 
particular  numbers,  and  rules  are  founded  upon  them:  e.g., 

(1)  To  find  the  price  of  a  dozen  articles;  call  the  pence  shillings,  and 
call  every  odd  farthing  three  pence. 

(2)  To  find  the  price  of  an  ounce,  when  the  price  of  1  Ib.  is  known;  call 
the  shillings  farthings  and  multiply  by  three. 

(3)  To  find  the  price  of  a  score,  call  the  shillings  pounds. 

(4)  To  find  the  interest  on  a  sum  of  money  at  5  per  cent.,  for  a  year; 
call  the  pounds  shillings,  and  for  every  additional  month  call  the  pound 
a  penny. 

(5)  To  square  a  number;  add  the  lower  unit  to  the  upper,  multiply  by 
the  tens,  and  add  the  square  of  the  unit. 

Each  of  these  rules  happens  to  offer  special  facilities  in  com- 
putation.   But  the  occasions  on  which  a  question 

Its  abuses, 
actually  occurs  in  one  of  these  forms  are  rare;  and 

the  student  who  has  his  memory  filled  with  these  rules  is  not 
helped,  but  rather  hindered  by  them  when,  for  example,  he 
wants  to  know  what  fourteen  articles  will  cost,  or  what  is  the 
interest  at  3  per  cent.,  or  how  to  multiply  75  by  23.  All  such 
rules  are  apt  to  seem  more  useful  than  they  are,  and  when  chil- 
dren, who  have  learned  the  knack  of  solving  a  few  such  problems 
are  publicly  questioned  by  those  who  are  in  the  secret,  the  re- 
sult is  often  deceptive.  I  attended  an  exhibition  or  oral  ex- 
amination of  a  middle  school  of  some  pretensions  a  short  time 
ago;  and  the  teacher  of  Arithmetic  undertook  to  put  the 
scholars  through  a  little  testing  drill.  All  his  questions  fell 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  some  of  these  special  rules.  He 
also  gave  one  or  two  exercises  in  rapid  addition  which  were 
answered  with  what  seemed  astonishing  rapidity  and  correct- 
ness: e.g., 

73  _|_  37  _j_  65  =  Answer  165. 

18  -f  82  +  37  +  63  +  15  =  Answer  215. 

Not  till  six  or  seven  such  sums  had  been  given  did  I  notice 
that  the  first  two  numbers  in  each  group  amounted  to  100,  and 


276  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

the  next  two  also;  and  that  all  the  questions  were  framed  on 
the  same  pattern.  Many  of  the  audience  did  not  detect  this, 
but  of  course  the  children  were  in  the  secret,  and  were,  in  fact, 
confederates  with  the  teacher  in  an  imposture.  It  is  because  so 
much  of  what  is  called  mental  arithmetic  consists  of  mere  tricks 
of  this  kind  that  the  subject  has  been  somewhat  justly  dis- 
credited by  good  teachers. 

But  the  mental  Arithmetic  which  is  of  real  service  does  not 

consist  in  exercise  in  a  few  special  rules,  but  in 

rapid,  varied,  and  irregular  problems  in  ail  the 

forms  which  computation  may  take.     It  differs  mainly  from 

written  Arithmetic,  in  that  it  uses  small  numbers  instead  of 

large  ones.    Before  attempting  to  work  exercises  in  writing  in 

any  rule,  a  good  oral  exercise  should  be  given  to  familiarize 

the  pupils  with  the  nature  of  the  operation.     I  will  give  a  few 

examples  to  illustrate  my  meaning: 

(1)  Addition  and  Subtraction.    Take  the  number  3,  add  to  it  1  and 
Examples         successively  to  the  sums,  up  to  50. 
of  oral     '  1,  4,  7,  10,  13,  16,  19,  22,  25,  28,  31,  etc.  etc. 

exercises.  So  with  sevens:  1,  8,  15,  22,  29,  36,  43,  50,  57,  64,  71. 
Then  take  50  or  100  and  go  rapidly  backwards  taking  away  8  every 
time,  or  seven,  or  eleven. 

You  will  observe  as  you  do  this  that  there  are  certain  combinations 
less  easy  than  others.  He  whose  turn  it  is  to  say  21  after  18,  or  to  take 
away  3  from  32,  will  halt  a  moment  longer  than  the  rest.  You  observe 
this,  and  make  tip  a  series  of  questions  in  which  these  two  particular 
numbers  shall  be  brought  into  relation:  28  and  3,  48  and  3, 19  and  3,  3 
from  42,  3  from  21,  etc. 

There  are  but  nine  digits,  and  if  in  succession  you  give  nine  short 
brisk  lessons, — one  on  each,— requiring  the  number  to  be  added  and 
subtracted  rapidly,  you  will  come  in  succession  upon  every  possible 
combination  of  these  digits.  You  will  bear  in  mind  that  when  you  your- 
self make  an  error  in  adding  up  a  line  of  figures,  you  can  trace  it  to 
some  particular  pair  of  units,  say  the  8  and  the  7,  or  the  9  and  the  5, 
which  habitually  give  you  more  trouble  than  the  rest.  It  is  only  prac- 
tice which  can  set  you  right.  So  the  moment  you  observe  any  hitch  or 
difficulty  in  special  combinations  or  subtractions,  it  is  well  to  work  at 
them  till  they  become  thoroughly  familiar,  till  for  example  the  sight  of 
8  and  7  together  instantly  suggests  5  as  the  unit  of  the  sum,  or  the  tak- 
ing away  of  6  from  a  number  ending  in  3  instantly  suggests  7. 


Examples  of  Oral  Exercise.  277 

(2)  Money.    Little  exercises  on  the  arithmetic,  first  of  a  shilling,  after- 
wards of  half  a  crown,  and  afterwards  of  a  sovereign,  are  very  interest- 
ing, and  require  no  slate  or  book.    The  scholars  should  be  practised  in 
rapid  adding  and  subtracting,  in  dividing  it  into  parts,  in  reduction  to 
half -pence  and  farthings;  in  telling  different  ways  in  which  the  whole 
may  be  made  up,  e.g.,  a  shilling  into  Id.  and  5d.,  into  8d.  and  4d.,  into 
3*4d.  and  8}gd.,  into  4J4d.  and  7^d.,  etc.,  until  every  form  of  arithmeti- 
cal exercise  possible  with  this  sum  of  money  shall  be  anticipated. 

(3)  Simple  Calculations  in  time;  e.g.,  the  time  it  will  be  3  hours  hence, 
8  hours,  12,  24;  the  date  and  day  of  the  week,  three  days,  four  weeks, 
seventeen  hours,  two  months  hence;  and  in  like  manner  easy  calcula- 
tions respecting  lengths  and  weights,  may  fitly  precede  all  attempts  to 
work  sums  in  compound  arithmetic  by  written  exercise. 

(4)  Fractions.    The  first  oral  exercises  should  be  founded  on  familiar 
sums  of  money,  and  on  the  products  already  known  in  the^multiplication- 
table  and  may  be  graduated  in  some  such  way  as  this: 

(a)  The  third  of  a  shilling,  the  8th,  the  12th,  the  4th,  the  6th,  etc.    The 
fifth  of  30,  the  ninth  of  27,  the  third  of  18,  the.  twelfth  of  72,  etc. 
(6)  g  of  6d.,  f  of  54,  ?  of  21,  T%  of  40,  |  of  16. 

(c)  What  number  is  that  of  which  5  is  g;  Of  which  4  is  ?;  Of  which  10 
is  |;  Of  which  2s.  is  f ;  Of  which  Is.  6d.  is  ?? 

(d)  Find  other  fractions  equal  to  §,  to  £ ,  to  J,  to  f ,  etc. 

(e)  &  of  a  foot,  |  of  1  lb.,  ?  of  a  week,  ^  of  an  hour. 

By  selecting  your  examples  from  fractions  which  present  no  com- 
plications or  remainders,  and  by  rapidly  varying  and  often  repeating 
them,  it  is  easy  to  advance  a  considerable  distance  in  the  manipulation 
of  fractions,  before  talking  at  all  about  numerators  and  denominators,  or 
giving  out  what  is  called  a  rule. 

(5)  Exercises  on  special  numbers,    (a)  Take  the  number  60.    Its  half. 
Its  third.    Its  fourth.    Its  fifteenth.    Its  sixteenth,  etc. 

(6)  Find  two  numbers  which  make  60;  24  and  36, 18  and  42,  etc. 

"      three  numbers 11,  14  and  35;  21,  19  and  20;  7, 

35  and  18,  etc. 

(c)  Take  from  60  in  rapid  succession,  fours,  sevens,  elevens,  eights, 
threes,  etc. 

(d)  Find  |  of  60,  ?,  A,  &,  ft,  f,  Jg,  JJ,  etc. 

(e)  Give  the  components  of  60  pence.    Of  60  shillings.    Of  60  farthings. 
Of  60  ounces.    Of  60  hours.    Of  60  yards,  etc. 

(/)  Find  in  how  many  ways  60  hurdles  might  be  arranged  so  as  to  en- 
close a  space,  or  in  how  many  forms  a  payment  of  £60  might  be  made. 

(C)  Proportion,  (a)  Name  other  figures  representing  the  same  ratio  as 
5:7.  As  3  :  8.  As  15  :  21,  etc.  etc. 


278  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

(6)  Find  a  fourth  proportional  to  2  :  3  ::  4.  To  5  :  6  ::  10.  To  7  :  12  ::  6. 
2s.  :  2s.  6d.  ::  4s.  £3  :  £1  5s.  ::  6  oz. 

(c)  Find  two  pairs  of  factors  whose  products  are  equal,  and  arrange 
the  whole  four  in  several  ways  so  that  they  shall  form  proportions  :  e.g., 
Because  5  X  24  =  8  X  15.  Therefore  5  : 15  ::  8  :  24  and  24  : 15  ::  8  :  5,  etc. 
etc. 

A  good  teacher  will  invent  hundreds  of  such  exercises  for 
himself,  and  will  not  need  a  text-book.  There  is  nothing  un- 
sound or  meretricious  in  mental  arithmetic  of  this  kind.  On 
the  contrary,  it  will  prove  to  be  one  of  the  most  effective  in- 
struments in  making  your  scholars  good  computers.  It  will 
give  readiness,  versatility,  and  accuracy,  and  will  be  found  an 
excellent  preliminary  training  for  the  working  of  ordinary 
sums  in  writing.  Keep  in  view  the  general  principle  that  the 
nature  of  each  process  should  be  made  familiar  by  oral  exercise 
before  recourse  is  had  to  pen  or  pencil  at  all,  and  that  the  oral 
exercises  should  be  of  exactly  the  same  kind  as  written  sums, 
but  should  differ  only  in  their  shortness,  and  in  the  fact  that 
each  problem  requires  only  one  or  at  most  two  efforts  of 
thought,  and  deals  only  with  figures  such  as  can  be  held  in  the 
mind  all  at  once,  without  help  from  the  eye.  Much  activity  of 
mind  is  needed  on  the  part  of  a  teacher  who  conducts  this  ex- 
ercise; and  it  is  not  its  least  recommendation  that  when  so  con- 
ducted it  challenges  the  whole  thinking  faculty  of  the  children, 
concentrates  their  attention,  and  furnishes  capital  discipline  in 
promptitude  and  flexibility  of  thought. 

In  beginning  to  give  lessons  on  money,  weights,  and  meas- 
ures, you  may  do  well  to  make  an  occasional  use  of 
The  use  of 
near  and          actual  money,  to  give  a  few  coins  in  the  hand  and 

oMectTas  to  let  them  be  counted.  In  French  and  Belgian 
units  of  meas-  schools,  not  only  is  a  diagram  showing  the  form 
urement.  .  J  ,  , 

and  proportion  of  the  legal  weights  and  meas- 
ures displayed,  but  a  complete  set  of  the  weights  and  measures 
themselves  is  deposited  in  every  school:  so  that  the  children 
may  be  taught  to  handle  and  to  use  them,  occasionally  to  weigh 
and  measure  the  objects  near  them,  and  to  set  down  the  results 


Weights  and  Measures.  279 

in  writing.  The  dimensions  of  the  school-room  and  of  the 
principal  furniture  should  be  known,  and  a  foot  or  a  yard,  or 
a  graduated  line  of  five  or  ten  feet  should  be  marked  con- 
spicuously on  the  wall,  as  a  standard  of  reference,  to  be  used 
when  lengths  are  being  talked  about.  The  area  of  the  play- 
ground; the  length  and  width  of  the  street  or  road  in  which  the 
school  stands;  its  distance  from  the  church  or  some  other 
familiar  object,  the  height  of  the  church  spire,  should  all  be 
distinctly  ascertained  by  the  teacher,  and  frequently  referred 
to  in  lessons  wherein  distances  have  to  be  estimated.  Children 
should  be  taught  to  observe  that  the  halfpenny  has  a  diameter 
of  exactly  one  inch,  and  should  be  made  to  measure  with  it  the 
width  of  a  desk  or  the  dimensions  of  a  copy-book.  It  con- 
stantly happens,  that  if  I  ask  elder  children,  who  have  "  gone 
through  "  as  it  is  called  a  long  course  of  computation  in  "  long 
measure,"  to  hold  up  their  two  hands  a  yard  apart,  or  to  draw 
a  line  three  inches  long  on  their  slates,  or  to  tell  me  how  far  I 
have  walked  from  the  railway  station,  or  to  take  a  book  in 
their  hands  and  tell  me  how  much  it  weighs,  their  wild  and 
speculative  answers  show  me  that  elementary  notions  of  the 
units  of  length  and  weight  have  not  been,  as  they  ought  to  be, 
conveyed  before  mere  "  ciphering"  was  begun. 

As  to  weights  and  measures,  they  are,  as  we  all  know,  a  great 
stumbling-block.  The  books  give  us  a  formidable  weights  and 
list  of  tables,  and  children  are  supposed  to  learn  measures, 
them  by  heart.  But  a  little  discrimination  is  wanted  here.  It 
is  needful  to  learn  by  heart  the  tables  of  those  weights  and 
measures  which  are  in  constant  use,  e.g.  avoirdupois  weight, 
long  measure,  and  the  number  of  square  yards  in  an  acre;  but 
it  is  not  worth  while  to  learn  apothecaries'  weight,  cloth  meas- 
ure, or  ale  and  beer  measure,  because  in  fact  these  measures 
are  not  in  actual  or  legal  use;  and  because  the  sums  which  the 
books  contain  are  only  survivals  from  an  earlier  age  when  the 
technical  terms  in  these  tables,  punclieons,  kilderkins,  scruples, 
and  Flemish  ells,  had  a  real  meaning,  and  were  in  frequent  use. 
Keep  these  tables  in  the  books  by  all  means,  and  work  some 


280  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

sums  by  reference  to  them:  they  are  of  course  all  good  exer- 
cises in  computation;  but  here,  as  elsewhere,  abstain  from 
giving  to  the  verbal  memory  that  which  has  no  real  value,  and 
is  not  likely  to  come  into  use. 

It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  refer  to  the  efforts  some  teachers 
Moral  lessons  have  made  to  use  Arithmetic  as  a  vehicle  for  the 
in  sums.  inculcation  of  Scriptural  or  other  truths.  Such 

efforts  have  been  commoner  in  other  countries  than  our  own. 
"  How  admirably,"  says  an  enthusiastic  French  writer  on 
Arithmetic,  ' '  does  this  science  lend  itself  to  moral  and  re- 
ligious training." 

Pere  Girard  composed  a  manual  of  Arithmetic  in  which,  for 
the  most  part,  the  problems  given  had  a  distinctly  hortatory 
character,  and  were  meant  to  embody  economic  and  moral  in- 
struction. Here  is  an  example. 

"Un  pere  de  famille  avalt  1'habitude  d'aller  tous  les  soirs  au  cabaret 
et  laissait  souvent  sa  famille  sans  pain  a  la  maison.  Pendant  quatre 
ans  qu'il  a  men6  cette  vie  il  a  depens6  la  premiere  ann6e  197  fr.,  la 
seconde  204  fr.,  la  troisieme  212  fr.,  et  la  quatrieme  129  fr.  Combien  de 
francs  aurait  epargn6  ce  malheureux  pere  s'il  n'eut  pas  eu  le  gout  de  la 
boisson?" 

And  another  French  writer  seeks  on  this  wise  to  give  a  moral 
tone  to  his  arithmetical  lessons.  He  supposes  the  Cure  to  visit 
the  school,  and  the  teacher  to  say, 

What  does  the  number  7  remind  you  of  f 

The  7  deadly  sins,  the  7  sacraments,  and  the  7  golden  candlesticks. 
What  have  you  to  tell  me  about  the  number  12? 

The  number  of  the  Apostles,  the  number  of  the  minor  prophets,  and  of 
the  gates  of  the  Apocalyptic  Jerusalem." 

And  then  he  turns  to  the  children,  "  Mes  enfants,"  he  says, 
"we  have  thus  shown  to  our  worthy  pastor  that  we  establish 
true  relations  between  the  art  of  computing  and  the  principles 
of  virtue  and  religion.  Who  will  say  after  this  that  Arithmetic 
is  not  a  moral  and  edifying  study?"— Who  indeed?  Of  course 
sums  founded  on  Bible  facts,  on  the  age  of  Methusaleh,  or  the 
length  of  Goliath's  spear,  are  innocent  enough.  But  I  suspect 


Rapid  Computation.  281 

that  all  attempts  of  this  kind  to  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone, 
so  to  speak,  are  very  unsatisfactory.  Moreover  it  does  not 
seem  quite  reverent  to  use  books  or  names  with  which  some  of 
us  have  very  sacred  associations  for  the  sake  of  manufacturing 
arithmetical  puzzles  for  school-boys.  After  all,  in  just  the 
proportion  in  which  children  pay  attention  to  the  sum  and  do 
it  well  as  a  question  in  arithmetic  they  will  disregard  the  moral 
or  religious  lessons  which  have  been  thus  artificially  forced 
into  the  exercise  of  counting.  Arithmetic  has  indeed  its  own 
moral  teaching.  Rightly  learned,  it  becomes  a  discipline  in 
obedience,  in  fixed  attention,  in  truthfulness  and  in  honor. 
These  are  its  appropriate  lessons,  and  they  are  well  worth 
learning.  But  if  you  want  to  deal  with  drunkenness  and  extra- 
vagance, or  to  teach  Bible  History,  it  is  better  to  adopt  some 
other  machinery  than  that  of  an  arithmetic  lesson. 

And  touching  one  of  these  habits,  that  of  fixed  and  concen- 
trated intellectual  attention,  it  may  be  well  to  bear  Rapid  com- 
in  mind  how  greatly  it  is  helped  by  exercises  in  pupation, 
rapid  counting.  Now  and  then  it  is  a  useful  exercise  to  have  a 
match,  and  to  let  the  scholars  work  a  given  number  of  sums 
against  time, — say  so  many  within  half  an  hour.  One  great 
advantage  of  this  is  that  it  keeps  the  scholar's  whole  power  and 
faculty  alive,  and  keenly  bent  on  the  one  object.  No  irrelevant 
or  foreign  thought  can  for  the  time  intrude  into  the  mind. 
And  quick  work  is  not  in  arithmetic,  as  in  so  many  other  sub- 
jects, another  name  for  hasty  and  superficial  work.  In  this 
one  department  of  school  life  slowness  and  deliberation  are 
rather  ensnaring  than  otherwise.  Intervals  are  here  of  little  or 
no  value  for  reflection.  They  merely  give  an  opportunity  for 
the  thoughts  to  wander.  The  quickest  calculators  are  those 
who  for  the  time  during  which  they  are  engaged  on  a  sum  shut 
everything  else  but  the  sum  out  of  their  thoughts;  and  they  are 
for  that  very  reason  the  best  calculators. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  arithmetic,  like  all  the  other 
exact  sciences,  has  the  advantage  of  dealing  with  results  which 
are  absolutely  certain,  as  far  as  we  can  claim  certainty  for  any- 


282  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

thing  we  know.    In  mathematical  and  purely  logical  deduction 

we  always  know  when  we  get  at  a  result  that  it 
Exactness.  .  ' 

is  either  correct  or  incorrect.  There  are  no  de- 
grees of  accuracy.  One  answer  is  right,  and  every  other  possi- 
ble answer  is  wrong.  Hence  if  we  want  to  get  out  of  arithme- 
tic the  training  in  precision  and  conscientious  exactness  which 
it  is  calculated  to  give,  we  must  never  be  content  with  an  an- 
swer which  is  approximately  right;  right  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses, or  right  in  the  quotient,  but  a  little  wrong  in  the  remain- 
der. The  perfect  correctness  of  the  answer  is  essential,  and  I 
counsel  you  to  attach  as  great  importance  to  the  minute  ac- 
curacy of  the  remainder  and  what  seems  the  insignificant  part 
of  the  answer,  as  to  the  larger  and  more  important  parts  of  it. 
In  mathematics  no  detail  is  insignificant. 

You  will  occasionally  get  answers  not  only  wrong,  but  pre- 
Exercisesin  posterously  and  absurdly  wrong;  e.g.  you  ask 
apmmimale  wnat  Per  cent-  °f  profit  is  gained,  and  receive 
answers.  some  thousands  of  pounds  for  the  answer;  or  you 
ask  a  question  the  answer  of  which  has  to  be  time,  and  the 
pupil  brings  it  you  in  pence.  It  is  well  to  check  this  by  often 
asking  a  scholar  to  tell  approximately,  and  before  he  does  his 
sum,  what  he  expects  the  answer  to  be, — about  how  much; 
why  e.g.  it  cannot  be  so  great  as  a  million,  or  so  small  as  twen- 
ty, or  in  what  denomination  the  answer  is  sure  to  come.  And 
if  he  has  not  expected  anything,  nor  exercised  himself  in  any 
prevision  as  to  what  sort  of  answer  should  emerge,  you  are 
in  a  position  at  once  to  discern  that  he  is  not  making  the  best 
sort  of  progress,  and  when  you  see  this  to  apply  a  remedy  at 
once. 
In  teaching  the  art  of  computation  it  is  legitimate  to  devise 

special  exercises  in  order  to  cultivate  ingenuity. 

Such  exercises  may  often  be  found  in  connection 
with  different  methods  of  proving  or  verifying  the  answers  to 
sums.  When  the  answer  has  been  found,  the  data  and  the 
qucesita  should  be  made  to  exchange  places,  and  the  scholars 
may  be  asked  to  construct  new  questions,  so  that  each  of  the 


Commercial  Rules.  283 

factors  in  the  original  problem  shall  be  made  in  turn  to  come 
out  as  the  answer.  Another  method  is  to  work  out  before  the 
class  in  full  a  solution  to  a  long  and  complex  sum,  and  then 
invite  the  scholars  to  tell  how  the  process  might  have  been 
abridged;  which  of  the  figures  set  down  was  not  essential  as  a 
means  of  obtaining  the  answer,  or  might  have  been  dispensed 
with.  Indeed  the  invention  of  contracted  methods  of  working, 
whether  by  cancelling  or  otherwise,  ought  always  to  be  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  scholar,  and  grow  fairly  out  of  his  own  expe- 
rience in  working  by  a  needlessly  long  process.  It  should  sel- 
dom or  never  be  enunciated  as  a  rule  by  the  teacher. 

It  is  perhaps  hardly  necessary  to  remind  any  one  here  that 
it  is  a  mistake  to  measure  the  practical  utility  of  commercial 
the  arithmetical  exercises  you  adopt  by  their  visible  ruieB- 
relation  to  commerce,  and  to  the  affairs  of  life.  Of  course  it  is 
important  that  many  of  the  problems  you  set  should  be  as  like 
the  actual  problems  of  business  as  possible.  Mere  conundrums, 
obviously  invented  by  the  bookmakers,  are  apt  to  seem  very 
unreal  to  boys  and  girls;  and  they  prefer  to  confront  the  sort 
of  difficulties  which  they  are  likely  to  meet  with  out  of  school. 
So  I  think  it  desirable  that  you  should  make  sums  out  of  the 
bills  you  pay,  and  bearing  on  what  you  know  to  be  the  rents  of 
the  houses,  the  income  and  expenditure  of  families  of  the  class 
of  life  to  which  your  pupils  belong.  You  should  keep  your 
eyes  open,  and  invent  or  take  from  the  newspapers  of  the  day 
little  problems  on  the  changing  prices  of  goods,  the  weekly  re- 
turns of  births  and  deaths,  the  returns  of  the  railway  com- 
panies, or  the  fluctuations  in  the  weekly  wages  of  artisans. 
Simple  examples  of  receipts,  and  of  the  use  of  a  ledger  and 
a  balance-sheet,  should  also  be  given  in  connection  with  the 
smaller  transactions,  with  which  the  scholars  are  most  fa- 
miliar. 

But  do  not  suppose  that  exercises  which  have  no  ostensible 
relation  to  real  business  are  of  inferior  value  even  for  practical 
purposes.  What  are  often  called  commercial  rules,  such  as 
discount,  and  tare  and  tret,  are  modified  a  good  deal  in  the 


284  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

counting-house  and  bank,  and  are  in  their  immediate  applica- 
tion to  business  often  far  less  serviceable  than  they  seem.  An 
eminent  London  Banker  once  said  to  me,  "  The  chief  qualifica 
tions  I  want  in  a  clerk  are,  next  to  good  character  and  associa- 
tions, that  he  should  write  a  good  hand,  that  he  should  have 
been  taught  intelligently,  especially  in  Arithmetic,  and  that  he 
should  not  have  learned  book-keeping.  We  have  our  own 
method  of  keeping  accounts,  and  a  pretentious  system  of  school, 
book  keeping  has  a  number  of  technical  terms  which  we  do 
not  use,  and  which  hinder  a  lad  from  learning  that  method. 
But  let  him  only  have  a  good  general  knowledge  of  the  princi- 
ples of  arithmetic  and  counting,  and  we  will  undertake  to  teach 
him  all  that  is  peculiar  to  the  books  of  our  house  in  less  than  a 
week."  Perhaps  this  is  an  extreme  case,  but  I  am  convinced  that 
attempts  to  anticipate  the  actual  application  of  arithmetic  to 
the  particular  business  in  which  a  pupil  may  be  hereafter  en- 
gaged are  generally  mistakes. 

The  application  of  arithmetic  to  the  solution  of  problems  is 
Other  forms  °^ ten  ^^^^  m  tne  bc-c-ks  to  what  is  called  busi- 
of  practical  ness.  But  commerce  is  after  all  only  one,  though 
lon'  the  most  prominent,  of  the  uses  to  which  arith- 
metic has  to  be  put  in  life.  There  are  many  interesting  and 
varied  applications  to  other  purposes,  which  might  be  used 
with  advantage:  e.g., 

The  computation  of  the  time  of  falling  bodies. 

The  conversion  of  our  weights  and  measures  into  French. 

Finding  the  length  of  circumference  and  radii,  and  the  area 
of  circles  and  squares. 

Actual  measurement  of  the  play-ground  or  a  neighboring 
field,  and  elementary  land-surveying. 

The  right  use  of  annuity  and  insurance  tables,  e.g.  the 
tables  at  the  end  of  the  Post-Office  Guide,  will  suggest  many  in- 
teresting forms  of  sums. 

The  use  of  logarithmic  tables,  and  the  solution  of  triangles 
by  means  of  them:  their  application  to  the  determination  of 
the  heights  of  mountains  or  spires  or  the  breadth  of  rivers. 


Decimalizing  English  Money.  285 

The  difference  of  time  between  various  places  whose  longi- 
tude is  given. 

The  measurement  of  distances  on  a  map  which  has  a  scale 
of  miles  attached  to  it. 

The  readings  of  the  thermometer  and  the  conversion  of 
Fahrenheit  to  centigrade. 

The  statistics  of  attendance  in  the  school  itself,  and  the 
method  of  computing  its  average  attendance. 

One  great  help  to  the  easy  solution  of  money  questions  is 
the  habit  of  using  decimal  equivalents,  or  reduc-   Reduction 
ing  sums  of  money  at  sight  to  decimals  of  £1.    mcmefto 
We  are  at  present  far  from  the  adoption  of  a  decimals, 
decimal    coinage  in  England;    but  we  can   by  anticipation 
enjoy,  in  our  accounts  at  least,  many  of  the  advantages  of 
a  decimal  system  of  money,  by  the  adoption  of  a  simple  rule. 
Let  it  be  observed  that  two  shillings  =  £'1,  that  one  shilling 
=  £'05,  that  sixpence  =  £'025,  and  that  a  farthing  differs  only 
from  £'001  by  a  very  small  fraction;  and  it  then  becomes  very 
easy  to  frame  a  rule  for  conversion  of  ordinary  expressions  for 
money  into  their  equivalent  decimal  expressions. 

Thus  £17  16s.  7|d.  =  £17'832,  because  16s.  =  8  florins  or 
£•8;  &Z.  =  £'025,  and  7  farthings  =  £'007. 

In  like  manner  £21 '367  =  £21  +  3  florins  or  £'3  +  1  shilling 
or  £-05  +  17  farthings  or  £'017,  or  in  all  £21  7s.  4jd. 

Half  an  hour's  practice  in  conversion  and  reconversion  in 
this  way  renders  the  process  familiar.  All  questions  in  which 
the  given  sum  of  money  does  not  extend  to  lower  fractions 
than  Qd.  can  evidently  be  solved  with  perfect  accuracy  by 
decimals,  and  without  encumbering  the  mind  with  the  ordinary 
reduction  at  all.  Nearly  all  questions  in  Interest  and  many  in 
Practice  and  Proportion  can  be  wrought  much  more  expe- 
ditiously  by  this  than  by  any  other  method.  Precaution  is 
needed  in  those  questions  only  in  which  odd  pence  and  farthings 
occur  and  require  to  be  multiplied. 

These  various  applications  of  arithmetic  have  different  de- 
grees of  utility;  but  their  value  is  not  to  be  measured  by  inquir- 


286  Arithmetic  as  an  Art. 

ing  which  of  them  is  most  likely  to  be  practically  useful.  The 
Visible  rela-  true  aim  in  devising  exercises  in  practical  arith- 
nessnotestof  metic  is  to  cultivate  general  power,  fertility  of  re- 
real  utility,  source,  and  quickness  in  dealing  with  numbers; 
the  habit  of  seeing  at  once  all  round  a  new  problem,  of  under- 
standing its  bearings,  and  applying  the  best  rule  for  its  solu- 
tion. Power  of  this  kind  is  available,  not  only  in  all  businesses 
alike,  but  hi  the  intellectual  and  practical  life  of  those  boys  and 
girls  who  are  not  likely  to  go  to  business.  And  this  general 
quickness  and  versatility  is  just  as  well  promoted,  we  must 
remember,  by  working  problems  which  have  an  abstract  look 
as  by  solving  those  in  which  the  phraseology  of  the  counter  or 
the  exchange  is  most  ostentatiously  used. 

One  other  department  of  mathematics  which  has  found  its  way 
Practical  *nt°  schools  resembles  Arithmetic  in  being  an  Art 
Geometry.  an(j  having  useful  practical  applications,  and  also  in 
furnishing  disciplinal  and  purely  intellectual  exercise.  Demon- 
strative Geometry  has  a  value  for  this  latter  purpose,  which,  from 
the  days  of  Plato  and  Archimedes,  has  been  very  generally  rec- 
ognized; but  the  claims  of  merely  practical  geometry  as  a  useful 
part  both  of  primary  and  of  secondary  instruction  appear  to  me 
to  deserve  more  consideration  than  they  generally  receive.  Every 
scholar  should  be  taught  to  use  the  compass  and  ruler,  and  the 
quadrant  and  scale  of  equal  parts.  He  should  draw  simple 
geometrical  figures,  as  well  as  talk  about  them,  and  recognize 
their  properties.  He  should  know  how  to  measure  angles  and 
lines,  and  to  construct  ordinary  plane  figures.  In  the  best 
schools  of  Germany,  France,  and  Switzerland  these  simple 
things  are  taught  to  every  scholar  as  matter  of  course.  You 
may  hear  a  teacher  dictate  to  the  class  directions  one  by  one  as 
to  the  construction  of  a  figure.  "  Draw  a  line  15  centimetres 
long,  then  another  line  upon  it  at  an  angle  of  35  degrees,  then 
another  line  of  a  given  length  to  the  right  or  left,  etc.,  etc.," 
until  the  class  produces  one  after  another  figures  which  he  has 
pre-determined,  and  of  which  the  qualities  and  dimensions  are 
afterwards  explained  and  discussed  in  the  class.  The  rules  for 
practical  geometry  are  comparatively  few  and  simple;  the  ex- 


Practical  Geometry. 


287 


ercise  is  interesting,  and  is  a  considerable  relief  from  graver  em- 
ployment. It  serves  to  familiarize  the  scholar  with  the  proper- 
ties of  circles,  of  triangles,  or  of  parallelograms,  and  so  to  make 
the  future  scientific  study  of  geometry  more  intelligible.  And 
for  those  who  may  never  learn  Euclid  or  even  the  modern  system 
of  demonstrative  geometry  which  seems  destined  to  supersede  it, 
geometrical  drawing  will  be  found  to  have  a  value  of  its  own  in 
enabling  scholars  to  judge  better  of  heights  and  distances,  and 
to  know  at  least  the  chief  properties  of  plane  and  solid  figures. 

Note  on  the  form  of  Abacus.  An  ingenious  modification  of  the  Abacus, 
or  ball-frame,  in  use  in  some  of  the  French  schools,  possesses  some  ad- 
vantages over  the  square  Chinese  frame  with  horizontal  bars  which  is  in 
common  use  in  English  schools.  It  is  thus  constructed: 


A  much  greater  variety  of  exercises  in  subtracting  and  combining  num- 
bers can  be  made  by  means  of  this  instrument;  and  the  upright  lines  may 
be  made  very  useful  in  explaining  the  principle  of  our  notation  and  the 
necessity  for  keeping  hundreds,  tens,  and  units  in  columns 


238  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 


XL   ARITHMETIC  AS  A  SCIENCE. 

HAVING  sought  to  lay  down  some  rules  by  which  a  teacher 
may  be  guided  in  making  the  mere  arts  of  computation  and 
measurement  effective  parts  of  education,  it  becomes  necessary 
to  consider  more  fully  the  claims  of  Arithmetic  as  a  sjcience, 
and  the  reasons  for  assigning  to  it,  as  a  disciplinal  study,  even 
a  higher  rank  than  would  be  due  to  its  practical  usefulness. 
We  should  all  be  agreed  that  the  main  purpose  of  our  intel- 
lectual  life  is  the  acquirement  of  truth,  and  that 
one  of  the  things  we  go  to  school  to  learn  is  how 
to  acquire  it.  The  mere  accumulation  of  facts  and  information 
does  not  supply  what  we  want.  The  difference  between  a  wise 
man  and  one  who  is  not  wise  consists  less  in  the  things  he  knows 
than  in  the  way  in  which  he  knows  them.  We  call  arithmetic 
a  science,  and  science,  it  may  be  said,  means  knowledge.  But 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  knowledge  which  is  uot  science.  Science, 
properly  so  called,  is  organized  knowledge,  knowledge  of 
things  and  facts  and  events  in  their  true  relation  and  co-ordina- 
tion, their  antecedents  and  consequences,— the  recognition  of 
every  separate  phenomenon  in  the  shifting  panorama  of  life  as 
an  illustration  of  some  principle  or  law,  broader,  higher  and 
more  enduring  than  itself.  No  number  of  facts  or  aphorisms 
learned  by  heart  makes  a  man  a  thinker,  or  does  him  much 
intellectual  service.  Every  particular  fact  worth  knowing  is 
connected  with  some  general  truth,  and  it  is  in  the  tracing  of 
the  connection  and  collocation  of  particular  and  separate  truths 
with  general  and  abiding  truths  that  science  mainly  consists. 
We  may  see  hereafter  that  an  historical  fact  is  learned  to  little 


Induction  and  Deduction.  289 

purpose  unless  it  is  seen  in  its  bearing  on  some  political,  eco- 
nomic, or  moral  law.  And  we  have  already  seen  that  a  gram- 
matical rule  has  scant  meaning  or  use  for  us  until  it  is  seen  as 
part  of  the  science  of  language.  This  distinction  runs  through 
all  sound  and  fruitful  acquirement,  and  should  always  be 
present  in  the  mind  of  a  teacher.  We  must  learn  to  see  special 
facts  and  bits  of  experience  in  the  light  of  the  larger  generaliza- 
tions by  which  the  world  is  governed  and  held  together.  We 
have  so  to  teach  as  to  develop  the  searching  and  inquiring 
spirit,  the  love  of  truth,  and  the  habit  of  accurate  reasoning. 
And  if  Arithmetic  can  be  so  taught  as  to  serve  this  purpose,  it 
has  a  value  which  greatly  transcends  what  seem  to  be  its 
immediate  objects,  and  will  be  found  to  affect  not  the  notions 
about  number  only,  but  also  those  about  every  other  subject 
with  which  the  understanding  has  to  deal. 

Here  it  seems  right  to  take  the  opportunity  of  referring  to  a 
distinction  much  insisted  on  in  books  on  educa-  induction  and 
tion,  and  on  which  I  have  yet  said  little  or  nothing:  Deduction. 
I  mean  the  distinction  between  inductive  and  deductive  modes 
of  reasoning.  In  studying  some  subjects,  the  learner  begins 
by  acquiring  separate  facts,  and  as  he  goes  on  learns  to  group 
them,  to  see  their  resemblances,  and  to  arrive  at  last  at  some 
larger  statement  of  fact  which  embraces  and  comprehends  them 
all.  This  process  is  called  "  induction,"  and  is  the  scientific 
method  or  process  with  which  Bacon's  name  is  generally  iden- 
tified, though  I  need  hardly  say  that  it  is  a  process  as  old  as 
the  human  intellect  itself.  Bacon  only  insisted  on  its  import- 
ance, and  helped  to  formulate  it  as  an  instrument  for  the  dis- 
covery of  truth.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  some  subjects  to 
be  studied,  in  which  you  begin  with  the  large,  general,  uni- 
versal truth,  and  proceed  afterwards  to  deduce  from  this  a 
number  of  special  and  detailed  inferences.  Such  subjects  are 
said  to  be  studied  deductively.  In  the  former  the  movement 
of  the  thoughts  is  from  the  perception  of  particulars  to  the 
recognition  of  the  general  law.  In  the  latter  it  is  from  the 
statement  of  the  general  to  the  recognition  of  the  particulars. 
19 


290  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

One  sees  that  his  neighbor  is  dead,  he  remembers  the  death  of 
his  parents  or  friends,  he  reads  the  history  of  the  past,  and  by 
putting  these  experiences  together,  he  arrives  inductively  at 
the  conclusion  —  that  All  men  are  mortal.  He  accepts  this 
proposition.  He  muses  over  it.  He  adds,  I  too  am  a  man. 
And  he  concludes,  I  therefore  am  mortal.  Here  the  process  is 
deductive.  And  sometimes  in  learning  he  must  use  one  process, 
and  sometimes  another.  And  it  is  a  great  part  of  the  business 
of  education  so  to  train  the  faculties  that  whichever  process  we 
adopt  we  should  use  it  rightly,  that  our  generalizations  shall 
be  valid  and  sound  generalizations,  and  that  our  inferences 
shall  be  true,  not  hasty  and  illegitmate  inferences,  from  the 
facts  which  may  come  before  us. 
Now  Arithmetic  and  Geometry  considered  as  sciences  afford 

examples  of  both  these  kinds  of  learning.  If  I  work 
Arithmetic 
and  Mathe^      out  a  few  problems  by  experimental  and  chance 

"1     methods,  and  having  seen  how  the  answer  comes 


wholly  de-  out,  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  one  method  is  best, 
I  have  reached  this  result  by  the  method  of  analy- 
sis or  induction.  But  if  I  start  from  axioms  and  definitions,  and 
afterwards  apply  these  to  the  solution  of  problems,  I  am  avail- 
ing myself  of  the  method  of  deduction.  But  the  method  of 
deduction  is,  after  all,  the  characteristic  mode  of  procedure  in 
arithmetical  as  well  as  in  all  other  departments  of  mathematical 
science.  We  shall  see  hereafter  that  the  physical  sciences  fur- 
nish the  best  training  in  inductive  reasoning,  for  there  you  have 
in  fact  no  axioms  or  admitted  truths  to  start  from,  and  must  in 
all  cases  begin  by  the  observation  of  phenomena  and  the  collo- 
cation of  experience.  But  elementary  truths  about  number 
and  about  space,  which  are  respectively  the  bases  of  arithmetic 
and  geometry,  have  the  great  advantage  of  being  very  simple 
and  very  evident.  They  lie  quite  outside  the  region  of  contin- 
gency or  controversy,  and  they  therefore  furnish  a  better  bases 
for  purely  deductive  or  synthetic  logic  than  any  other  class  of 
subjects  in  which  the  very  data  from  which  we  proceed  are 
often  disputed,  or  at  least  disputable. 


Deduction,  the  Mathematical  Process.       291 

Take  a  geometrical  axiom— an  elementary  truth  concerning 
the  properties  of  space — "  two  straight  lines  cannot  mathematics 
enclose  a  space;"  or  an  arithmetical  axiom,  an  a  training  in 
elementary  truth  concerning  the  properties  of 
number,  "  to  multiply  by  two  numbers  successively  is  to  mul- 
tiply by  their  product,"  and  we  observe  that  the  moment  we 
state  them  we  perceive  their  necessary  truth;  there  is  no  room 
for  debate  or  difference  of  opinion;  to  understand  either  state- 
ment is  to  accept  it.  And  so  with  all  other  of  the  fundamental 
axioms  of  geometry  and  arithmetic.  Whatever  particular  facts 
prove  ultimately  to  be  contained  in  these  general  or  universal 
truths  must  be  true.  As  far  as  we  can  be  certain  of  anything 
we  are  certain  of  these. 

Suppose  then  I  want  to  give  to  myself  a  little  training  in  the 
art  of  reasoning;  suppose  I  wish  to  get  out  of  the  region  of 
conjecture  or  probability,  free  myself  from  the  difficult  task  of 
weighing  evidence,  and  putting  instances  together  to  arrive  at 
general  propositions,  and  simply  desire  to  know  how  to  deal 
with  my  general  propositions  when  I  get  them,  and  how  to 
deduce  right  inferences  from  them;  it  is  clear  that  I  shall 
obtain  this  sort  of  discipline  best  in  those  departments  of 
thought  in  which  the  first  principles  are  unquestionably  true. 
For  in  all  our  thinking,  if  we  come  to  erroneous  conclusions, 
we  come  to  them  either  by  accepting  false  premises  to  start 
with — in  which  case  our  reasoning,  however  good,  will  not 
save  us  from  error;  or  by  reasoning  badly,  in  which  case  the 
data  we  start  from  may  be  perfectly  sound,  and  yet  our  con- 
clusions may  be  false.  But  in  the  mathematical  or  pure 
sciences, — geometry,  arithmetic,  algebra,  trigonometry,  the 
calculus  of  variations  or  of  curves, — we  know  at  least  that 
there  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  error  in  our  first  principles,  and  we 
may  therefore  fasten  our  whole  attention  upon  the  processes. 
As  mere  exercises  in  logic,  therefore,  these  sciences,  based  as 
they  all  are  on  primary  truths  relating  to  space  and  number, 
have  always  been  supposed  to  furnish  the  most  exact  disci- 
pline. When  Plato  wrote  over  the  portal  of  his  school,  "  Let 


292  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

no  one  ignorant  of  geometry  enter  here,"  he  did  not  mean  that 
questions  relating  to  lines  and  surfaces  would  be  discussed  by 
his  disciples.  On  the  contrary,  the  topics  to  which  he  directed 
their  attention  were  some  of  the  deepest  problems, — social, 
political,  moral, — on  which  the  mind  could  exercise  itself. 
Plato  and  his  followers  tried  to  think  out  together  conclusions 
respecting  the  being,  the  duty,  and  the  destiny  of  man,  and  the 
relation  in  which  he  stood  to  the  gods  and  to  the  unseen  world. 
What  had  geometry  to  do  with  these  things?  Simply  this: 
That  a  man  whose  mind  had  not  undergone  a  rigorous  train- 
ing in  systematic  thinking,  and  in  the  art  of  drawing  legitimate 
inferences  from  premises,  was  unfitted  to  enter  on  the  discus- 
sion of  these  high  topics;  and  that  the  sort  of  logical  discipline 
which  he  needed  was  most  likely  to  be  obtained  from  geome- 
try— the  only  mathematical  science  which  in  Plato's  time  had 
been  formulated  and  reduced  to  a  system.  And  we  in  this 
country  have  long  acted  on  the  same  principle.  Our  future 
lawyers,  clergy,  and  statesmen  are  expected  at  the  University 
to  learn  a  good  deal  about  curves,  and  angles,  and  numbers 
and  proportions;  not  because  these  subjects  have  the  smallest 
relation  to  the  needs  of  their  lives,  but  because  in  the  very  act 
of  learning  them  they  are  likely  to  acquire  that  habit  of  stead- 
fast and  accurate  thinking,  which  is  indispensable  to  success  in 
all  the  pursuits  of  life. 

What  mathematics  therefore  are  expected  to  do  for  the  ad- 
Arithmetic  vanced  student  at  the  University,  Arithmetic,  if 
mate  of^the  ^US^  demonstratively,  is  capable  of  doing  for 
School.  the  children  even  of  the  humblest  school.  It  fur- 

nishes training  in  reasoning,  and  particularly  in  deductive  rea- 
soning. It  is  a  discipline  in  closeness  and  continuity  of 
thought.  It  reveals  the  nature  of  fallacies,  and  refuses  to 
avail  itself  of  unverified  assumptions.  It  is  the  one  depart- 
ment of  school-study  in  which  the  sceptical  and  inquisitive 
spirit  has  the  most  legitimate  scope;  in  which  authority  goes 
for  nothing.  In  other  departments  of  instruction  you  have  a 
right  to  ask  for  the  scholar's  confidence,  and  to  expect  many 


Our  Artificial  Notation.  293 

thiugs  to  be  received  on  your  testimony  with  the  understanding 
that  they  will  be  explained  and  verified  afterwards.  But  here 
you  are  justified  in  saying  to  your  pupil  "Believe  nothing 
which  you  cannot  understand.  Take  nothing  for  granted." 
In  short  the  proper  office  of  arithmetic  is  to  serve  as  elementary 
training  in  logic.  All  through  your  work  as  teachers  you  will 
bear  in  mind  the  fundamental  difference  between  knowing  and 
thinking;  and  will  feel  how  much  more  important  relatively  to 
the  health  of  the  intellectual  life  the  habit  of  thinking  is  than 
the  power  of  knowing,  or  even  facility  in  achieving  visible 
results.  But  here  this  principle  has  special  significance.  It  is 
by  Arithmetic  more  than  by  any  other  subject  in  a  school  course 
that  the  art  of  thinking — consecutively,  closely,  logically — can 
be  effectually  taught. 

I  proceed  to  offer  some  practical  suggestions  as  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  this  principle,  if  once  recognized,  should  domi- 
nate the  teaching  of  Arithmetic,  and  determine  your  methods. 

You  have  first  of  all  to  take  care  that  so  much  of  our  Arith- 
metical system  as  is  arbitrary  and  conventional  OUT  artificial 
shall  be  shown  to  be  so,  and  not  confounded  notation- 
with  that  part  of  Arithmetic  which  is  permanently  true,  and 
based  on  the  properties  of  number.  We  have  for  example 
adopted  the  number  ten  as  the  basis  of  our  enumeration;  but 
there  is  nothing  in  the  science  of  numbers  to  suggest  this. 
Twelve  or  eight,  or  indeed  any  other  number,  might  have 
served  the  same  purpose,  though  not  with  quite  the  same  con- 
venience. Again  the  Arabic  notation  adopts  the  device  of 
place  to  show  the  different  values  of  figures:  e.g.  In  643  the  6 
is  shown  to  mean  6  tens  of  tens,  and  the  4  to  mean  4.  tens,  by 
the  place  in  which  they  stand.  But  convenient  as  this  arrange- 
ment is,  other  devices  might  have  been  adopted,  which  would 
have  fulfilled  the  same  purpose;  and  the  Roman  mode  of  repre- 
senting the  same  number  by  DCXLIII  may  be  with  advantage 
compared;  and  its  inconvenience  practically  tested  by  trying  to 
work  a  sum  with  it.  Again  the  wholly  artificial  and  acci- 
dental way  in  which  our  system  of  weights  and  measures  has 


294  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

originated  should,  when  the  proper  time  comes,  be  explained, 
and  a  comparison  be  made  with  some  other  system,  especially 
the  French  Systeme  Metrique.  Generally  it  may  be  said  that 
when  you  find  yourself  confronted  with  any  arithmetical  de- 
vices or  terminology  which  are  arbitrary  in  their  character,  you 
will  do  well  to  show  their  arbitrariness  by  comparing  them 
with  some  others  which  are  equally  possible. 

The  first  occasion  comes  when  you  explain  the  decimal 
illustration  of  character  of  our  common  arithmetic,  the  device  of 
method'of  distinguishing  the  meaning  of  the  various  multi- 
notation,  pies  of  ten  and  of  the  powers  of  ten,  by  their  places 
and  nearness  to  the  unit;  and  the  use  of  the  cipher  or  naught 
(0).  Here  an  appeal  to  some  visible  or  tangible  illustration  will 
help  you  much.  I  take  from  an  ingenious  French  book '  an 
example  of  such  an  appeal. 


Here  you  observe  small  balls  or  marbles  are  used  to  repre- 
sent units,  bags  containing  ten  of  them  to  represent  tens,  boxes 
containing  ten  such  bags  to  represent  hundreds,  and  baskets 
containing  ten  boxes  each  represent  thousands.  When  this  has 
been  shown,  you  may  further  illustrate  the  nature  of  our  nota- 
tion by  an  addition  sum,  as  in  the  diagram  opposite. 

You  require  in  succession  that  the  numeration  of  each  line 
should  be  explained  orally,  you  call  special  attention  to  the 
need  and  special  use  of  the  0  in  the  second  line.  It  is  seen  that 
the  first  column  makes  33,  and  that  of  them  30  may  be  included 

1 1/Aritliin-'t  iijut-  <lii  grand-papa;  histoire  de  deux  petite  marchands  de 
pommes,  par  Jean  Mac6.  Paris,  Collection  HetzeL 


Illustrations  of  the  Decimal  Notation.      295 


8 


5      6 


7      0 

oo 

soa    S2S 


in  3  bags,  and  3  remain.  The  addition  of  the  next  line  gives  30, 
and  shows  the  need  of  a  device  for  marking  the  vacant  place, 
and  showing  that  there  are  no 
odd  tens.  The  26  hundreds  are 
then  shown  to  consist  of  2  bas- 
kets full  containing  10  boxes 
each,  and  of  6  boxes  or  hun- 
dreds remaining.  These  two 
baskets  added  to  the  four  bas- 
kets represent  six  thousands. 

Thus  the  fundamental  parts 
of  our  system  of  notation — the 
device  of  place,  the  counting  by 
tens,  the  use  of  the  cipher,  and 
the  need  of  carrying,  are  all 
made  clear  to  the  eye  and  to  the 
understanding  of  your  pupil. 

Many  other  forms  of  visible 
illustration  have  been  devised, 
but  it  will  be  far  better  for  you 
to  exercise  your  own  ingenuity 
in  inventing  them.  Only  bear 
in  mind  the  rule  of  action  al- 
ready urged  upon  you.  When 
your  box  of  cubes,  your  aba- 
cus, your  number  pictures,  your 
diagrams  representing  collec- 
tions of  tens,  have  succeeded  in 
making  the  subject  intelligible; 
have  the  courage  to  cast  them 
aside.  Arithmetic  is  an  abstract 
science,  and  the  sooner  scholars 
can  see  its  truths  in  a  pure 
and  abstract  form,  the  better. 
It  is 'not  an  uncommon  fault  among  Pestalozzian  teachers  to 
employ  what  are  sometimes  called  intuitional  methods,  long 


8  9 

si  & 

4  s 

S33  & 

3  7 


C3-C3. 


296  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

after  they  have  served  their  purpose,  and  when  the  pupil  is 
quite  ready  to  deal  intelligently  with  abstract  rules. 

One  very  effective  way  of  making  the  decimal  notation  clear 
Scales  of  is  to  assume  some  other  number  than  ten  as  the 
other'than  possible  base  of  a  system  of  notation,  and  to  invite 
decimal.  the  scholars  to  consider  with  you  how  numbers 
would  have  been  represented  on  that  system.  It  may  be 
shown  that  as  a  system  founded  on  tens  requires  nine  digits 
and  a  cipher,  so  a  quaternary  system  would  have  required 
three  digits  only,  an  undenary  would  have  required  one  more 
digit  than  we  use,  say  x ;  and  that  a  binary  scheme  of  notation 
applicable  to  the  highest  numbers  would  have  been  possible 
with  one  digit  and  a  cipher  only,  since  all  large  numbers 
would  then  have  been  gathered  into  twos  and  powers  of  two, 
instead  of  into  tens  and  powers  of  ten. 

By  questions  and  suggestions  you  and  your  scholars  come  to 
frame  on  the  black-board  some  such  table  as  this: 

Decimal  Scale.         Scale  of  two.         Scale  of  six.       Scale  of  eleven. 


1 

i 

i 

l 

2 

10 

2 

2 

8 

n 

3 

3 

4 

100 

4 

4 

6 

101 

5 

5 

6 

110 

10 

6 

7 

111 

11 

7 

8 

1000 

n 

8 

9 

1001 

13 

9 

10 

1010 

14 

X 

11 

1011 

15 

10 

12 

1100 

20 

11 

18 

1101 

21 

12 

14 

1110 

22 

13 

15 

1111 

28 

14 

16 

10000 

94 

15 

17 

10001 

85 

16 

18 

10010 

30 

17 

19 

10011 

31 

18 

20 

10100 

32 

19 

A  few  easy  sums 

to  be  worked  out 

in  numbers 

arranged  on 

these  scales,  and 

afterwards  verified 

by  conversion  into  ordi- 

Lesson  on  the  Syst&me  Metrique.  297 

nary  numbers,  will  do  much  to  clear  the  mind  of  the  pupil  as  to 
the  wholly  artificial  character  of  the  decimal  notation. 

When  you  come  to  Weights  and  Measures,  and  before  re- 
quiring tables  to  be  learned  by  heart,  it  is  well  Lesson  rathe 
as  I  have  said  to  give  a  short  historical  lesson  SystSme 
showing  how  our  system  grew  up.  The  fact  that 
we  want  fixed  units  of  length,  of  weight,  and  of  capacity  to 
serve  as  the  basis  of  all  calculation,  and  the  curious  fact  that 
nature  does  not  supply  by  any  single  object  a  determinate  and 
unalterable  unit  of  any  one  of  them,  will  partly  account  for 
the  queer  and  irregular  way  in  which  we  have  from  time  to 
time  based  our  calculations  on  grains  of  barley,  on  the  vibra- 
tions of  the  pendulum,  or  the  length  of  Henry  I.'s  arm.  With 
a  good  diagram,  such  as  is  in  use  in  all  the  French  schools,  it 
may  then  be  shown  how  the  unit  of  length,  the  Metre,  which 
forms  the  base  of  the  metric  system,,  is  obtained  from  the 
measurement  of  a  definite  part  of  the  earth's  meridian;  how 
this  unit  squared  gives  the  unit  of  surface,  the  Are;  how  the 
same  unit  cubed  gives  the  units  both  of  magnitude  and  of 
capacity,  the  Litre  andthe  Stere;  how  a  given  bulk  so  measured 
of  distilled  water  gives  the  unit  of  weight,  the  Gramme;  how  a 
certain  weight  of  silver  gives  the  unit  of  value,  the  Franc; 
and  how  all  these  units  by  a  simple  nomenclature  are  subject 
to  decimal  multiplication  and  sub-division.  It  is  only  when  a 
simple  and  scientific  system  like  this  is  seen  in  all  its  details  — 
and  the  whole  of  it  may  easily  be  explained  and  learned  in  one 
half-hour's  lesson  —  that  the  real  nature  of  the  confusion  and 
anomalies  of  our  own  system  of  compound  arithmetic  comes 
into  clear  light. 

Every  rule  you  teach  should  be  first  of  all  made  the  subject 
of  an  oral  lesson  and  demonstration.    The  method   All  rules 
of  experiment  and  induction  will  often  enable  you  ^emonstrat- 


to  arrive  at  the  rule  and  show  its  necessity.     One  ed  before 

of  the  first  rules  in  which  the  difference  between  learned  or 

a  skilled  teacher  and  a  mere  slave  of  routine  be-  Practised- 

comes  apparent  is  the  early  rule  of  Subtraction.  You  want, 


298  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

for  example,  to  take  479  from  853,  and  the  method  of  so-called 
explanation  is  apt  to  be  like  this: 

"  9  from  3  I  cannot;  Borrow  10.    9  from  13  leaves 
853  4.     Set  down  4. 

479  "  Carry  1  to  the  7.     7  and  1  are  8;  8  from  5,  I 

374  cannot;  borrow  10;  8  from  15  leaves  7.     Set  down  7. 

"  Cany  1  to  the  4.    4  and  1  are  5.    5  from  8  leaves 
3.     Set  down  3." 

Now,  of  course,  if  the  object  is  to  get  the  right  answer,  that 

o,  ^     ^         object  is  fulfilled,  for  374  is  undoubtedly  correct. 
Subtraction.          J  .       .     .   .  ...  T .      J 

But  as  an  exercise  in  intelligence  I  hope  you  see 

that  this  is  utterly  worthless.  The  word  "borrow"  has  been 
put  into  the  children's  mouths,  but  whence  the  ten  is  borrowed, 
why  it  is  borrowed,  or  what  sort  of  morality  that  is  which  per- 
mits you  to  "borrow  ten"  in  one  direction,  and  pretends  to 
compensate  by  "  paying  back  one"  in  another,  are  points  which 
are  left  in  obscurity.  Language  like  this,  which  simulates  ex- 
planation and  is  yet  utterly  unintelligible,  is  an  insult  to  the 
understanding  of  a  child;  it  would  be  far  better  to  tell  him  at 
once  that  the  process  is  a  mystery,  than  to  employ  words  which 
profess  to  account  for  it,  and  which  yet  explain  nothing. 
There  are  two  ways  in  which,  with  a  little  pains,  the  reason 

Method  of  de-    of    this    rVile    mav  ^  made    clear   even    to  lhe 
composition,    youngest  class.    Thus: 

853  =  7  hundreds  + 14  tens  + 13 
479  =  4  "  +  7  "  +  9 
374  3~  7  4 


"  9  cannot  be  taken  from  3;  so  borrow  one  of  the  tens  from 
the  50  (in  other  words,  resolve  53  into  40  and  13).  9  from  13 
leaves  4.  Set  down  4  in  the  units'  place. 

"  7  tens  cannot  be  taken  from  4  tens;  so  borrow  1  from  the  8 
hundreds  (in  other  words,  resolve  8  hundreds  and  4  tens  into  7 


Method  of  Equal  Additions.  299 

hundreds  and  14  tens).     7  tens  from  14  tens  leave  7  tens.     Set 
down  7  in  the  tens'  place. 

"  4  hundreds  from  7  hundreds  leave  3  hundreds.  Set  down 
3  in  the  hundreds'  place." 

Now  here  you  will  observe  that  the  word  "borrowing"  is 
not  inappropriate.  But  there  is  no  paying  back;  for  you 
have  only  borrowed  from  one  part  of  your  minuend  853  to 
another,  and  dealt  with  its  parts  in  a  slightly  different  order 
from  that  indicated  by  the  figures.  You  have  simply  resolved 
800  -|-  50  -|-  3,  for  your  own  convenience,  into  the  form  700  + 
140  + 13;  and  have  left  the  subtrahend  479  untouched.  I  do 
not  say  this  is  the  best  method  of  working,  but  it  is,  at  least, 
easy  to  explain;  and  the  language  you  employ  is  self -consistent 
throughout. 

The  second  method  is  a  little  harder  to  explain,  but  easier 
to  work.     It  is  that  most  generally  adopted  in  Method  ot 
schools.  But  before  beginning  to  do  a  sum  by  it,  it   equal  addi- 
is  worth  while  to  explain  to  your  class  the  very  sim- 
ple principle  that  "  the  difference  between  unequal  quantities  is 
not  altered,  if  we  add  equal  quantities  to  both."    If  I  have  five 
shillings  in  one  pocket  and  seven  in  another,  the  difference  is 
two  (7  —  5  =  2);   but  if  I  afterwards  put  three  shillings  into 
each  pocket,  the  difference  is  still  two  (10  —  8  =  2).    By  very 
simple  illustration  of  this  kind  you  may  easily  bring  children 
to  the  conclusion,  that  if,  for  any  reason,  we  think  it  con- 
venient to  add  equal  sums  to  two  numbers  whose  difference 
we  want  to  find,  we  are  at  liberty  to  do  so  without  affecting 
the  accuracy  of  the  answer.    When  this  has  been  explained, 
the  sum  may  be  thus  worked: 

853  + 100  +  10  8  hundreds,  15  tens     13 

479 -|- 100 +  10  5  hundreds,    8  tens       9 

374  3  hundreds +  7  tens  +  4 

"  9  from  three  cannot  be  taken.  Add  10  to  the  upper  line. 
9  from  13  leaves  4.  Set  down  4. 


300  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

"  Having  added  10  to  the  upper  line,  I  add  ten  to  the  lower. 
8  tens  from  5  tens  cannot  be  taken.  Add  10  tens  to  the  upper 
line,  8  tens  from  15  tens  leaves  7  tens.  Set  down  7. 

"  Having  added  10  tens,  or  1  hundred  to  the  upper  line,  we 
must  add  1  hundred  to  the  lower;  5  hundreds  from  8  hundreds 
leave  3  hundreds.  Set  down  3." 

But  here  it  is  observable  that  you  have  not  performed  the 
problem  proposed.  You  have  not  taken  479  from  853;  but 
you  have  added  first  10,  and  afterwards  1  hundred  to  each,  and 
the  real  problem  performed  has  been  to  take  479  + 110,  or 
500  +  80  +  9  from  853  +  110,  or  from  800  +  150  +  13.  But 
this,  according  to  the  principle  first  explained  gives  the  same 
result  as  to  take  the  first  number  from  the  second  without  the 
addition  of  the  hundred  and  ten. 

Yet  the  common  phraseology  employed  about  borrowing  and 
carrying  is  equally  inappropriate,  and  therefore  equally  be- 
wildering, in  both  these  processes.  For  by  the  first  method 
there  may  be  borrowing,  but  there  is  no  carrying;  and  by  the 
second,  there  is  neither  borrowing  nor  carrying,  but  equal  ad- 
dition. 

Another  device  to  which  a  good  teacher  resorts  early  is  the 
Learners  making  of  the  Multiplication  Table  in  the  pres- 

uptheirke  ence  of  tne  class>  and  witlt  its  helP-  Generally 
own  tables.  the  whole  of  that  formulary  is  placed  before  the 
scholars,  and  they  are  required  to  learn  it  by  heart,  without 
knowing  how  it  is  formed  or  why.  Now  if  the  teacher  says  he 
is  going  to  make  up  the  table  of  multiplication  by  twos,  and 
then  writes  2  on  the  board,  and  requires  the  scholars  to  repeat 
the  number,  so  that  he  writes  down  each  result  and  records  at 
the  side  the  number  of  twos  which  have  been  added,  he  makes 
it  clear  to  the  scholars  that  multiplication  is  only  a  series  of 
equal  additions,  and  that  the  rule  is  only  a  device  for  shorten- 
ing a  particular  form  of  addition  sum.  He  will  then  deal  in 
like  manner  with  each  of  the  9  digits  in  succession,  and  after- 
wards efface  what  he  has  written  and  require  the  scholars  to 
manufacture  their  own  table  before  learning  it. 


Arithmetical  Parsing.  301 

One  very  effective  way  of  making  the  theory  of  a  process 
clear,  is  to  adopt  the  method  to  which  I  may  give  Arithmetical 
the  name  of  "arithmetical  parsing."  It  consists  Parsin&- 
in  drawing  out  before  the  class  the  whole  of  a  given  process 
without  abridgment,  and  then  analyzing  it  in  such  a  way  that  a 
separate  account  shall  be  given  of  every  figure  in  succession, 
showing  clearly  how  and  why  it  plays  a  part  in  obtaining  the 
final  result.  I  take  an  example  from  Simple  Division,  although 
almost  every  other  rule  would  do  as  well.  I  will  suppose  that 
by  simple  examples  you  have  shown  what  Division  is,  that  you 
have  deduced  from  the  division  of  the  parts — say  of  a  shilling, 
and  from  some  such  example  as  this: 

Because  27  =  12  +  9  +  6 
Therefore  the  third  of  27  or  ^7-  =  V-  +  I +  f  or  4  +  3-f  2, 

the  general  truth  that  "we  divide  one  number  by  another 
when  we  divide  each  of  the  parts  of  the  first  successively  by  the 
second,  and  add  the  quotients  together."  It  is  then  seen  that 
when  the  dividend  is  a  large  number,  it  has  to  be  resolved  into 
such  parts  as  can  be  dealt  with  one  by  one,  in  order  that  all  the 
several  results  as  they  are  obtained  shall  be  added  together  to 
make  the  whole.  An  example  may  be  worked  thus:  Divide 
34624  by  seven: 

7)34624 

4000  =  28000  -f-  7 

900=   6300 -f- 7 

40  =     280-4-7 

6  =       42  H-  7 


4946?  =  34624  -s-  7 

This  method  of  analysis  is  especially  effective  in  what  is 
called  Long  Multiplication,  in  Division,  and  also  in  Practice; 
for  in  these  rules  the  answer  comes  out  piecemeal,  and  it  is 
both  easy  and  interesting  to  challenge  pupils  for  the  separate 


302  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

significance  and  value  of  each  line  of  figures  as  it  is  arrived 
at. 

In  the  exercise  just  given  it  is  well  to  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  whole  problem  has  not  in  fact  been  solved,  for 
that  all  the  dividend  except  2  has  been  divided;  but  the  seventh 
part  of  two  remains  undiscovered,  and  must  for  the  present  re- 
main in  the  form  f  or  the  seventh  part  of  two. 

Here  then  is  the  proper  place  to  begin  the  explanation  of 
Fractions  fractions.  They  ought  not  to  be  postponed  later, 
should  be  certainly  not  placed  as  they  often  are  most  im- 
any'  properly,  after  proportion.  The  remainder  of  a 
division  sum  suggests  the  necessity  of  dealing  with  the  parts  of 
unity.  Here  an  appeal  may  be  made  to  the  eye: 


r 

—  , 

i 

i 

ii 

and  it  may  be  demonstrated  that  one  seventh  of  two  inches  is 
the  same  as  two  sevenths  of  one  inch.  I  need  not  say  that  in 
your  early  lessons  on  fractions,  the  method  of  visible  illustra- 
tion is  especially  helpful,  and  that  by  drawing  squares  or  other 
figures  and  dividing  them  first  into  fourths  and  eighths,  then 
into  thirds,  sixths  and  ninths,  or  by  the  use  of  a  cube  divided 
into  parts,  you  may  make  the  nature  of  a  fractional  expression 
very  evident  even  to  young  children,  and  may  deduce  several 
of  the  fundamental  rules  for  reduction  to  a  common  denomi- 
nator, and  for  addition  and  subtraction. 

Fractions  afford  excellent  discipline  in  reasoning  and  reflec- 
tion. No  one  of  the  rules  should  be  given  on  authority,  every 
one  of  them  admits  of  being  thought  out  and  arrived  at  by  the 
scholars  themselves,  with  very  little  of  help  and  suggestion 
from  their  teacher.  What  for  example  can  be  more  unsatis- 
factory than  the  rule  for  Division  of  Fractions  if  blindly  ac- 
cepted and  followed.  "Invert  the  divisor  and  treat  it  as  a 
multiplier."  This  seems  more  like  conjuring  with  numbers 
than  performing  a  rational  process.  But  suppose  you  first  pre- 
sent the  problem  and  determine  to  discover  the  rule.  You  here 


Demonstration  of  Fractional  Division.      303 

find  it  needful  to  enlarge  a  little  the  conception  of  what  Divi- 
sion means.  "  What  is  it "  you  ask  "  to  divide  a  number?"  It  is 

(1)  To  separate  a  number  into  equal  parts; 

(2)  To  find  a  number  which  multiplied  by  the  divisor  will 
make  the  dividend; 

(3)  To  find  how  many  times,  or  parts  of  a  time,  the  divisor  is 
contained  in  the  dividend. 

It  will  have  been  shown  before,  that  this  expression  "  the 
parts  of  a  time"  is  necessary  in  dealing  with  fractions,  and  in- 
volves an  extension  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  divisor  as  or- 
dinarily understood  in  dealing  with  integer  numbers.  You 
may  then  proceed  to  give  four  or  five  little  problems  graduated 
in  difficulty;  e.g., 

(1)  Divide  12  by  J.    What  does  this  mean?    To  find  how  many  times 
£  is  contained  in  12.    But  J  is  contained  three  times  in  1,  so  it  must  be 
contained  3  X  12  times  in  12.    Wherefore  to  divide  by  $  is  the  same  as  to 
multiply  by  3. 

(2)  Divide  15  by  J.    This  means  to  find  how  many  times  f  are  con- 
tained in  15.    But  £  must  be  contained  in  it  15  X  4  or  60  times.    So  j 

4  X  15 

must  be  contained  in  it  one  third  of  60  times  or  — Wherefore  to 

o 
divide  by  J  is  the  same  as  to  multiply  by  §. 

(3)  Divide  ?  by  f.    This  means  to  divide  by  the  fourth  part  of  3.    Let 

us  first  divide  by  3.    Now  $  divided  by  3  —  7^— „,  or  ,BT.      But   since  we 

<  X  o 

were  not  to  divide  by  three  but  by  the  fourth  part  of  3,  this  result  is  too 

4X5 

little,  and  must  be  set  'right  by  multiplying  by  4.    Hence  — sr-  is  the  an- 
swer.   Wherefore  to  divide  $  by  J  is  the  same  as  to  multiply  by  j. 

(4)  To  divide  £  by  j  is  to  find  how  often  £  is  contained  in  $.    Let  us 
bring  them  to  a  common  denominator  $  =  Ji.  ar>d  3  —  ?i-     The  question 
therefore  is  how  often  are  gj  contained  in  jjg?    Just  as  often  as  21  shil- 
lings are  contained  in  20  shillings:  that  is  to  say  not  once,  but  $J  of  a 
time,  for  this  fraction  represents  the  number  of  times  that  20  contains 
21.    Wherefore  $  -*-  J  =  f  x  j. 

(5)  To  divide  $  by  J  is  to  find  a  fraction  which  if  multiplied  by  i  will 
make  $.     That  means  that  J  of  this  unknown   fraction  will  make  ?. 
But  whenever  A  is  £  of  S,  B  must  be  §  of  A.     Hence  the  desired  frac- 
tion must  be  f  of  f.    But  this  is  the  same  fraction  which  would  have 
been  produced  by  inverting  the  divisor  and  making  it  as  a  multiplier. 


304  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

Wherefore  to  divide  by  any  fraction  is  to  multiply  by  its  reciprocal, 
or 

«     c_« vd 
6     d~6     c 

Q.  E.  D. 

I  recommend  that  after  each  of  these  short  exercises  the 
numbers  be  altered,  and  the  scholars  required  one  by  one  to  go 
through  the  demonstration  orally.  This  will  be  found  to  serve 
exactly  the  same  purpose  as  the  proving  of  a  theorem  in  geom- 
etry. It  calls  out  the  same  mental  qualities,  demands  concen- 
tration of  thought,  and  careful  arrangement  of  premises  and 
conclusion,  and  furnishes  an  effective  though  elementary  les- 
son in  logic  and  in  pure  mathematics. 

The  habit  of  registering  the  result  of  any  such  process,  or 
The  use  of  embodying  any  truth  you  have  ascertained  in  the 
shape  of  a  formula  in  which  the  letters  of  the  al- 
phabet are  substituted  for  numbers  is  a  very  useful  one.  The 
pupil  makes  a  clear  advance  in  abstract  thinking;  if,  for  exam- 
ple, after  showing  that  equal  additions  to  two  numbers  do  not 
alter  their  difference,  and  illustrating  this  by  such  examples  as 

Because  12-7  =  5,  therefore  (12  -f  8)  -  (7  -f  8)  =  5, 
you  help  him  also  to  see  the  truth  of  this: 

If  a  —  b  —  c,  then  (a-\-  n)  —  (b-\-  n)  =  c. 

Do  not  suppose  that  this  is  algebra.  No  one  of  the  notions  or 
processes  proper  to  algebra  is  here  involved.  It  is  simply  the 
statement  of  an  arithmetical  truth  in  its  most  abstract  form.  It 
lifts  your  pupil  out  of  the  region  of  particulars  into  the  region 
of  universal  truths.  It  helps  him  to  see  that  what  is  true  of 
certain  numbers  and  what  he  has  actually  verified  in  the  case 
of  those  numbers  is  necessarily  true  of  all  numbers.  So  I  re- 
commend th«f  practice  of  embodying  each  arithmetical  truth  as 
you  arrive  at  it  in  a  general  formula. 

There  is  not  a  single  process  in  Arithmetic  out  of  which  you 
may  not  get  real  intellectual  training  as  well  as  practical  useful- 
ness, if  you  will  only  set  this  before  you  as  one  of  the  objects  to 
be  attained.  The  plea  that  it  takes  time,  and  hinders  progress, 


Exercises  in  Ingenuity  and  Discovery.      305 

is,  in  iny  opinion,  wholly  invalid.     What  do  you  mean  by  pro- 
gress? It  is  surely  not  hastening  to  what  are  called   „      .     .., 
advanced  rules.     It  is  rather  such  increased  mas-   meticalpuz- 
tery  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  arithmetic  as 
will  enable  the  pupil  to  invent  rules  for  himself.     And  this  he 
will  attain  if  you  set  him  thinking  about  the  meaning  of  every 
process  which  you  require  him  to  use.    Put  before  your  class 
occasionally  little  facts  about  numbers,  and  ask  them  to  find 
out  the  reasons  for  them.    Here  are  two  or  three  simple  ex- 
amples of  what  I  mean: 

(a)  If  the  numbers  in  the  following  series  progress  by  equal 
additions 

1  •  3  •  5  •  7  .  9  •  11  .  13  •  15  •  17  -  19  •  21, 
why  is  it  that  each  pair  of  numbers,  e.g.  the  first  and  the  last, 
the  second  and  the  last  but  one,  the  third  and  the  last  but  two, 
etc.,  equals  22,  a  number  equal  to  twice  11,  the  middle  term? 

(ft)  If  I  take  any  number — say  732586,  and  any  other  com- 
posed of  the  same  digits,  say  257638,  and  substract  one  from 
the  other,  thus: 

732586  why  is  it  that  the  digits  of  the  remainder  are  sure 
257638  to  gjve  me  an  exact  number  of  nines  4  -(-  7  -j-  4 
474948  _j_9_|_4  +  8  =  36-4x9? 

(c)  If  I  take  four  numbers  in  proportion  or  representing  two 
\;qual  ratios,  e.g.  6 : 24  ::  5  : 20,  why  is  it  that  6  times  20 
must  equal  24  X  5? 

In  this  last  case  you  will  do  well  to  make  the  scholar  deduce 
the  equality  of  the  two  products  as  a  necessity  from  the  fact 
that  the  four  numbers  are  in  proportion.  He  sees  that  24  and 
5  make  a  certain  product,  and  because  ex  hypolh&i  6  is  as  many 
times  less  than  24  as  20  is  more  than  5,  therefore  that  the  pro- 
duct of  6  and  20  must  equal  that  of  5  and  24.  And  when  this 
is  seen  to  be  necessarily  true  of  all  proportions,  the  ordinary 
rule  for  finding  one  of  the  factors  when  the  other  three  are 
given  will  readily  be  supplied  by  the  pupils  themselves. 
20 


306  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

Proportion,  however,  though  it  is  a  very  interesting  and 
valuable  part  of  arithmetical  science,  and  though 
its  principles  furnish  excellent  opportunities  for 
exercise  in  logical  demonstration,  is  of  less  practical  utility  in 
the  solution  of  problems  than  the  text-books  seem  to  assume. 
The  Rule  of  Three  is  a  great  stumbling-block  to  learners.  It 
comes  much  too  early  in  the  course,  and  learned  empirically  as 
it  too  often  is,  it  is  not  readily  capable  of  application  to  prob- 
lems. Nearly  all  the  questions  usually  set  down  under  the 
head  of  "Rule  of  Three  "  can  be  much  better  solved  by  simpler 
methods.  Such  a  question  as  this  for  example: 

"If  17  articles  cost  £23  10s.,  what  will  50  such  articles 
cost?" 

ought  not  to  be  stated  and  worked  as  Proportion;  but  by  the 
method  of  reduction  to  unity,  thus: 

One  article  must  cost  £23  10s.  -s- 17.     Therefore,  50  articles 
£23   10s.  X  50 


must  cost 


17 


Thus  the  true  place  for  the  theory  of  proportion  is  after 
fractions,  vulgar  and  decimal,  have  been  well  understood  and 
seen  in  varied  applications. 

My  last  illustration  shall  be  taken  from  an  advanced  rule, 
Extraction  that  f°r  the  Extraction  of  the  Square  Root.  I 
of  roots.  wju)  ag  before,  take  an  easy  sum,  and  the  direc- 
tions for  solving  it,  as  given  in  the  ordinary  books. 

Find  the  square  root  of  676,  or  the  number  which,  multiplied 
by  itself,  will  give  676. 

RULE — "  Point  off  the  alternate  numbers  from 
the  unit,   and  thus  divide  the  numbers  into 
f6'3    periods. 

461276(6        "Find  the  nearest  square  root  of  the  first 
276         period,  and  subtract  its  square. 

"(The  nearest  square  root  of  6  is  2;  set  down 
2,  and  take  twice  2  from  6.) 


The  Square  Hoot.  307 

"  Set  down  the  remainder,  and  bring  down  the  next  period. 

"  (Set  down  2  and  bring  down  76.) 

"Double  the  first  figure,  set  it  down,  and  use  it  as  a  trial 
divisor  for  the  two  first  figures.  Place  the  quotient  thus  found 
to  its  right,  and  then  divide  as  usual.  (Set  down  6  after  the  4 
and  multiply  46  by  6.) 

"  26  is  the  number  sought,  and  is  the  square  root  of  676." 

Really,  as  I  recite  it,  the  rule  sounds  more  like  a  riddle,  or  a 
series  of  instructions  in  numerical  legerdemain,  than  an  appeal 
to  the  understanding.  Whatever  be  the  accuracy  or  worth  of 
the  result  produced,  it  is  certain  that  the  process  so  described 
will  do  more  to  deaden  than  to  invigorate  the  thinking  faculty 
of  any  one  who  practises  it.  Moreover,  as  the  rule  appears 
utterly  arbitrary,  the  memory  will  have  great  difficulty  hi  re- 
taining it,  and  without  constant  and  toilsome  practice,  will 
probably  not  retain  it  at  all. 

Now  before  describing  to  you  the  rational  process  of  attain- 
ing this  result,  I  may  remind  you  that  in  the  The  Syntheti- 
earlier  part  of  arithmetic  the  rules  came  in  pairs. 
Thus,  in  Addition,  you  have  the  parts  given,  and  Rule, 
are  required  to  find  the  whole;  and  this  rule  is  followed  by 
Subtraction,  in  which  you  have  the  whole  given  and  one  of 
the  parts,  and  are  required  to  find  the  other  part.  So  also  in 
Multiplication,  the  factors  are  given,  and  you  have  to  find  their 
product;  and  then  there  is  the  inverse  process  of  Division,  in 
which  the  product  and  one  of  the  factors  are  given,  and  you 
are  required  to  find  the  other  factor.  In  each  case  the  former 
process  is  one  of  synthesis,  or  putting  parts  together,  and  the 
latter  process  one  of  analysis  or  decomposition  of  parts.  But 
we  all  feel  this  order  to  be  a  natural  and  proper  one.  You 
would  not  teach  Subtraction  before  Addition,  nor  Division  be- 
fore Multiplication;  because  unless  a  learner  in  this  science  first 
knows  how  to  put  the  parts  together  to  make  the  result,  he  is 
not  in  a  position,  with  the  result  before  him,  to  find  out  how 
that  result  is  produced.  Now  the  rule  for  finding  the  square 
root  of  a  number  is  obviously  a  rule  of  decomposition  or  analy- 


308  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

sis,  and  is  one  of  a  pair  of  rules,  analogous  to  Multiplication 
and  Division,  of  which  the  one  shows  how  to  form  the  second 
power  of  a  number  out  of  the  multiples  of  its  parts,  and  the 
other  shows  how,  when  the  second  power  of  a  number  is  given, 
to  find  the  parts  of  that  number  of  which  it  is  the  second  power. 
But  this  rule  for  Evolution. presupposes  the  rule  of  Involution; 
and  cannot,  in  fact,  be  properly  understood,  unless  that  rule 
has  first  been  learned.  Yet  in  text-books  of  arithmetic  no 
mention  is  generally  made  of  Involution,  but  the  pupil  is  in- 
troduced at  once  to  the  Extraction  of  the  Square  Root. 
Instead  therefore  of  departing  from  the  analogy  of  the  earlier 

_      ,  . .  rules  of  arithmetic,  and  plunging  at  once  into  the 

Involution. 

rule  for  the  extraction  of  roots,  before  we  examine 

the  formation  of  squares,  let  us  begin  by  trying  to  find  the  second 
power  of  an  easy  number  composed  of  two  parts.     Thus: 

Because  11  =  7  +  4;  then  11  X  11  =  (7  +  4)  X  (7  +  4). 

But  on  multiplying  each  of  these  parts  of  eleven  by  each  of 
the  parts  of  eleven  successively,  and  adding  them  together,  I 
find  I  have  four  distinct  products,  of  which  the  first  is  the 
square  or  second  power  of  7,  the  last  is  the  square  or  second 
power  of  4;  and  the  remaining  two  are  alike  each  being  the  pro- 
duct of  7  and  4. 

74-4 

74-4 


(4X7)4-     (4X4) 

(7X7)+     (7X4)  =  (7  +  4)x7 1 


+  2(7x4)+4a= 


or  49  +     2X28+16  =  121 

And  in  this  way  we  may  easily  arrive  at  this  general  truth: 
"If  a  number  consists  of  two  parts,  the  second  power  of  the 
whole  number  consists  of  the  second  power  of  the  first  part, 
together  with  the  second  power  of  the  second  part,  together 
with  twice  the  product  of  the  first  and  second  parts.  " 

I  will  suppose  that  you  have,  by  the  help  of  varied  illustra- 
tion, made  your  pupils  perfectly  familiar  with  this  proposition 


Involution  and  Evolution.  309 

— and  led  them  to  recognize  it  under  the  general  abstract  for- 
mula: 

If  a  -  I  +  c  then  aa  =  5"  -f  c»  -f  2bc. 

You  are  now  in  a  position  to  deal  with  the  problem  origin- 
ally proposed:  Find  the  square  root  of  676.  Evolution 

"  Tens  multiplied  by  tens  give  hun- 
dreds, therefore  the  square  root  of  hun- 
dreds will  be  tens. 

"  The  nearest  square  root  to  600  is  2  676/20  +  6 

tens.  400\=  20* 

"  Take  from  676  the  square  of  2  tens       40X276/6 
or  400.  /?40\=  (40  X  6) 

"  There  remain  276.  36  =  6a 

"Therefore,  the  square  root  of  676 
is  greater  than  20,  and  consists  of  20 
plus  another  number." 

But  if  so,  the  remainder  276  must  contain  not  only  (he  square 
of  tliat  other  number,  but  twice  the  product  of  the  number  20  and 
that  number.  With  a  view  to  find  that  number,  try  how  many 
times  twice  20  are  contained  in  the  remainder.  The  number  6 
appears  to  fulfil  this  condition.  See  now,  if  276  contains  six 
times  40,  together  with  6  times  6,  or  6  times  46  in  all.  If  so,  6 
is  the  unit  figure  of  the  required  root.  It  has  now  been  shown 
that  676  contains  the  square  of  20,  and  the  square  of  6,  and 
twice  the  product  of  20  and  6, 

or  26'  =  202  +  62  +  2  (20  X  6) 
400  +  36+    240  =  676. 

The  who.e  explanation  of  this  inverse  process  is  evidently 
deducible  from  the  simple  law  of  involution  first  described. 
The  reason  of  the  pupil  follows  every  step,  and  acquiesces  in  a 
rule,  otherwise  prima  facie  absurd,  and  therefore  hard  to  re- 
member. All  this  is  of  course  very  familiar  and  simple  to  the 
student  of  algebra;  but  I  have  never  been  able  to  understand 
why  it  should  be  postponed  to  algebra,  or  why  the  principles 
of  arithmetic,  requiring  as  they  do  for  their  elucidation  no  use 


310  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

of  symbols,  no  recondite  language,  nothing  but  simple  numeri- 
cal processes,  should  not  be  taught  on  their  own  merits,  and  in 
their  own  proper  place. 

An  appeal  to  the  eye  will  greatly  help  the  understanding  of 
Analogous       *ne  ru^e  f°r  ^e  extraction  of  the  square  root.    A 

truths  in          square  may  be  erected  on  a  line  divided  into  two 

Arithmetic 

and  Geome-     unequal  parts,  and  it  will  be  seen  to  be  separable 

into  four  spaces  whose  dimensions  correspond  to 
the  products  just  given.  Afterwards  a  square  on  a  line  divided 
into  three  or  more  parts  may  be  shown,  and  the  dimensions  of 
the  several  parts  may  be  expressed  in  numbers.  In  like  manner 
every  proposition  in  the  Second  Book  of  Euclid  may  be  com- 
pared with  some  analogous  proposition  respecting  the  powers 
and  products  of  numbers.  But  it  is  important  here  not  to  mis- 
take analogy  for  identity.  Some  teachers  seem  to  think  they 
have  proved  the  theorems  in  geometry  when  they  have  expressed 
the  corresponding  truths  in  algebraic  symbols.  The  use  of  the 
word  "  Square, "both  for  a  four-sided  figure  and  for  the  second 
power  of  a  number,  is  a  little  misleading;  and  Euclid's  use  of 
the  terms  Plane  and  Solid  numbers  in  his  Seventh  Book  would 
have  further  mystified  students  had  it  been  commonly  accepted. 
But  since  Geometry  is  founded  entirely  on  the  recognition  of 
the  properties  of  space,  and  Algebra  and  Arithmetic  on  those 
of  number,  it  is  necessary  to  preserve  a  clear  distinction  in  the 
reasoning  applicable  to  the  two  subjects.  Except  as  showing 
interesting  analogies,  the  two  departments  of  science  should  be 
kept  wholly  separate;  and  while  the  truths  about  the  powers 
and  products  of  numbers  should  be  investigated  by  the  laws  of 
number  alone,  geometrical  demonstrations  should  be  founded 
rigorously  on  axioms  relating  to  space,  and  should  not  be  con- 
fused by  the  use  of  algebraic  symbols. 

Our  attention  to-day  has  been  necessarily  confined  to  the  con- 
Algebra  and  sideration  of  a  rational  way  of  treating  Arith- 
Geometry.  metic,  the  one  department  of  mathematics  with 
which,  in  a  school,  the  teacher  is  first  confronted.  But  the 
general  design  should  be  in  the  mind  of  the  teacher, 


True  Purpose  of  Mathematical  Teaching.    311 

through  Geometry,  Algebra,  Trigonometry,  the  Calculus,  and 
all  the  later  stages  of  mathematical  teaching.  While  con- 
stantly testing  the  success  of  his  pupils  by  requiring  problems 
to  be  worked,  he  will  nevertheless  feel  that  the  solution  of 
problems  is  not  the  main  object  of  this  part  of  his  school  dis- 
cipline, but  rather  the  insight  into  the  meaning  of  processes, 
and  the  training  in  logic.  If  Algebra  and  Geometry  do  not 
make  the  student  a  clearer  and  more  accurate  and  more  con- 
secutive thinker,  they  are  worth  nothing.  And  in  the  new 
revolt  against  the  long  supremacy  of  Euclid,  as  represented  in 
the  Syllabus  of  the  "  Association  for  the  Improvement  of  Geo- 
metrical Teaching,"  the  one  danger  we  have  to  fear  is  that  the 
demonstrative  exercises  will  be  cut  up  into  portions  too  small  to 
give  the  needful  training  in  continuity  of  thought.  Euclid, 
with  all  his  faults,  obliges  the  learner  to  keep  his  mind  fixed 
not  only  on  the  separate  truths,  but  also  on  the  links  by  which 
a  long  succession  of  such  truths  are  held  together.  It  is  well 
to  simplify  the  science  of  geometry,  and  to  arrange — as  the 
authors  of  the  Syllabus  have  done — its  various  theorems  in  a 
truer  order.  But  since  it  is  not  geometry,  but  the  mental  ex- 
ercise required  in  understanding  geometry,  which  the  student 
most  wants  to  acquire,  a  system  of  teaching  which  challenged 
less  of  fixed  attention  and  substituted  shorter  processes  for  long 
would  possibly  prove  rather  a  loss  than  a  gain. 

We  return  finally  to  the  fundamental  reason  for  teaching 
mathematics  at  all  either  to  boys  or  men.    Is  it  The  true 
because  the  doctrines  of  number  and  of  magni-   ^themati- 
tude  are  in  themselves  so  valuable,  or  stand  in  any  cal  teaching, 
visible  relation  to  the  subjects  with  which  we  have  to  deal  most 
in  after  life?    Assuredly  not.    But  it  is  because  a  certain  kind 
of  mental  exercise,  of  unquestioned  service  in  connection  with 
all  conceivable  subjects  of  thought,  is  best  to  be  had  in  the 
domain  of  mathematics.     Because  in  that  high  and  serene 
region  there  is  no  party  spirit,  no  personal  controversy,  no  com- 
promise, no  balancing  of  probabilities,  no  painful  misgiving 
lest  what  seems  true  to-day  may  prove  to  be  false  to-morrow. 


312  Arithmetic  as  a  Science. 

Here,  at  least,  the  student  moves  from  step  to  step,  from  pre- 
mise to  inference,  from  the  known  to  the  hitherto  unknown, 
from  antecedent  to  consequent,  with  a  firm  and  assured  tread; 
knowing  well  that  he  is  in  the  presence  of  the  highest  certitude 
of  which  the  human  intelligence  is  capable,  and  that  these  are 
the  methods  by  which  approximate  certitude  is  attainable  in 
other  departments  of  knowledge.  No  doubt  your  mere  mathe- 
matician, if  there  be  such  a  person, — he  who  expects  to  find  all 
the  truth  in  the  world  formulated  and  demonstrable  in  the 
same  way  as  the  truths  of  mathematics,  is  a  poor  creature,  or  to 
say  the  least  a  very  incomplete  scholar.  But  he  who  has  re- 
ceived no  mathematical  training,  who  has  never  had  that  side 
of  his  mind  trained  which  deals  with  necessary  truth,  and  with 
the  rigorous,  pitiless  logic  by  which  conclusions  about  circles 
and  angles  and  numbers  are  arrived  at,  is  more  incomplete  still; 
he  is  like  one  who  lacks  a  sense:  for  him  "wisdom  at  one  en- 
trance" is  "quite  shut  out;"  he  is  destitute  of  one  of  the  chief 
instruments  by  which  knowledge  is  attained. 

Nor  is  it  enough  to  regard  mathematical  science  only  in  its 
far-reaching  applications  to  such  other  subjects  as  astronomy 
and  physics,  or  even  in  its  indirect  efficacy  in  strengthening  the 
faculty  of  ratiocination  in  him  who  studies  it.  There  is  some- 
thing surely  in  the  beauty  of  the  truths  themselves.  We  are 
the  richer — even  though  we  look  at  them  for  their  own  sakes 
merely — for  discussing  the  subtle  harmonies  and  affinities  of 
number  and  of  magnitude,  and  the  wonderful  way  in  which 
out  of  a  few  simple  postulates  and  germinating  truths  the  mind 
of  man  can  gradually  unfold  a  whole  system  of  new  and  beau- 
tiful theorems,  expanding  into  infinite  and  unexpected  uses  and 
applications.  And  as  we  look  on  them  we  are  fain  to  say  as  the 
brother  in  Comus  said  of  a  kind  of  philosophy  which  was  novel 
to  him,  and  which  perhaps  he  had  hitherto  despised,  that  it  is  in- 
deed 

"  Not  harsh  or  crabbed  as  dull  fools  suppose, 
But  musical  as  is  Apollo's  lute, 
And  a  perpetual  feast  of  nectar'd  sweets 
Where  no  crude  surfeit  reigns." 


Object  to  be  Kept  in  View.  313 


XII.     GEOGRAPHY   AND   THE   LEARNING   OF 
FACTS. 

In  considering  the  subject  of  Geography  we  shall  do  well  to 
repeat  our  former  question  —  Why  teach  it  at  all?  Object  to  be 
What  purposes  do  we  hope  to  serve  in  including  kept  in  view< 
it  in  our  course?  We  have  seen  in  reference  to  the  teaching  of 
languages  and  of  mathematics,  that  although  there  were  two 
distinct  purposes  to  be  kept  in  view,  —  the  practical  and  useful 
application  of  those  studies  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  indirect 
mental  discipline  afforded  by  them  on  the  other,  —  in  both  cases 
the  second  object  was  more  important  than  the  first.  Here, 
however,  it  is  not  so.  Our  main  object  in  teaching  Geography 
is  to  have  certain  facts  known,  because  those  facts,  however 
learned,  have  a  value  of  their  own.  We  live  in  a  beautiful  and 
interesting  world;  one  marvellously  fitted  to  supply  our  wants 
and  to  provide  us  with  enjoyment;  and  it  seems  fitting,  if  we 
would  be  worthy  denizens  of  such  a  home,  that  we  should  know 
something  about  it,  what  it  looks  like,  how  big  it 


is,  what  resources  it  contains,  and  what  sort  of   useful  as 
,.  »     j  i_'u.      m    i  ^T.        it-         •    1.1.      information. 

lives  are  lived  in  it.     To  know  these  things  is  the 

first  thing  contemplated  in  teaching  Geography.  If  there  be 
mental  exercise,  and  good  training  in  the  art  of  thinking  and 
observing  to  be  got  out  of  these  studies,  they  are  the  secondary 
not  the  primary  objects  which  we  want  to  attain.  Yet  even 
here  in  the  one  department  of  teaching  in  which  mere  informa- 
tion, as  distinguished  from  scientific  method  or  intellectual  train- 
ing, is  relatively  of  the  most  importance,  there  are  as  in  other 
subjects,  right  ways  and  wrong,  intelligent  and  unintelligent 
methods.  The  incidental  and  indirect  effect  of  teaching  on  the 


314     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

formation  of  mental  habits  is  not  to  be  disregarded;  and  though 
much  of  the  result  we  hope  to  gain  belongs  to  the  region  of 
Yet  partly  as  the  memory  only,  we  shall  be  all  the  better  for  in- 
discipline, quiring  whether  there  is  not  also  room  here  for 
appeal  to  the  judgment  and  to  the  imagination;  whether,  in 
short,  Geography  may  not  be  a  really  educational  instrument, 
as  well  as  a  mass  of  facts  which  have  to  be  mastered  and  com- 
mitted to  memory. 

It  is  the  more  important  to  think  thus  about  Geography;  be- 
Geography  cause  I  have  observed  that  this  is  the  favorite  sub- 
considered  Ject  °ften  "^h  the  worst  and  most  mechanical 
easy  to  teach,  teachers.  It  is  in  fact  the  one  subject  in  which 
the  maximum  of  visible  result  may  be  attained  with  the  mini- 
mum of  intellectual  effort.  To  give  a  few  names  of  places 
and  point  them  out  on  the  map,  is  the  easiest  of  all  lessons, 
and,  what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  it  makes  a  great  show  when 
it  is  learned.  And  when  I  ask  a  teacher  what  is  the  favorite 
subject  of  pursuit  in  his  school  and  he  answers  Geography,  and 
afterwards  I  find  that  what  is  called  Geography  merely  means 
the  knowledge  of  a  number  of  names,  and  the  power  to  identify 
their  position  on  the  map,  I  always  draw  a  very  unfavorable 
inference  respecting  the  character  of  that  school  as  a  place  of 
intellectual  training;  for  I  know  that  such  information  may 
have  been  imparted  without  the  least  exertion  of  educating 
power  on  the  master's  part;  and  that  a  good  deal  of  such 
knowledge  may  easily  co-exist,  in  the  learner's  mind,  with  com- 
plete mental  inaction  and  barrenness. 

Nevertheless,  it  would  of  course  be  wrong  to  undervalue  the 
subject,  (1)  because,  if  rightly  taught,  it  may  be  very  stimulat- 
ing and  helpful  to  mental  development,  and  (2)  because  it  is 
better  to  have  it  taught  wrongly  than  not  taught  at  all.  For 
even  information  as  to  the  position  of  places  on  the  globe  is 
useful  to  everybody;  useful  especially  to  Englishmen,  who  are 
fortunate  enough  to  be  "citizens  of  no  mean  city"  and  to  be- 
long to  a  race  which  dominates  a  larger  portion  of  the  earth's 
surface,  and  has  more  varied  and  interesting  relations  with  dis- 


Home  Geography.  315 

tant  parts  of  this  planet,  than  any  other  people  in  ancient  or 
modern  times. 

Now  in  considering  how  we  should  teach  Geography,  we 
may  usefully  fall  back  on  a  principle  we  have  had  How  to  ar_ 
before — that  we  should  begin  with  what  is  known  rive  at  right 
and  what  is  near,  and  let  our  knowledge  radiate  D 
from  that  as  a  centre  until  it  comprehends  that  which  is  larger 
and  more  remote.  This  principle  is  specially  applicable  to  the 
present  subject.  You  want  of  course  to  give  right  general  notions 
of  the  surface  and  configuration  of  the  earth,  and  of  the  mean- 
ing and  use  of  a  map.  The  best  way  to  begin  is  to  draw  a  little 
ground -plan  of  the  school-room;  and  put  into  it  one  after  an- 
other, as  the  children  watch  you  and  make  their  suggestions, 
the  desks,  the  tables,  and  other  articles.  Train  them  to  observe 
you  as  you  draw,  and  to  correct  you  if  you  put  a  door  into  the 
wrong  place,  or  make  the  line  which  represents  a  desk  of  dis- 
proportionate length.  Then  try  a  map  of  the  surroundings  of 
the  school  room,  its  playground,  the  street  in  which  it  stands, 
the  principal  roads  near,  and  put  in  one  after  another  the  church, 
the  railway  station,  a  river,  a  bridge,  and  other  familiar  objects, 
at  the  same  time  inviting  each  child  to  put  into  the  map  in  its 
proper  place  his  own  home.  Thus  they  will  learn  the  meaning 
and  right  use  of  a  map,  and  will  feel  a  good  deal  of  interest  when 
they  see  it  grow  before  them  under  your  hand  as  you  draw  it 
on  the  board  and  fill  in  one  detail  after  another.  Without  some 
such  previous  explanation  and  actual  manufacture  of  a  plan 
before  the  eyes  of  the  children,  an  ordinary  printed  map  of 
Europe  or  of  the  world  is  nothing  but  a  colored  enigma. 

So  a  lesson  on  Home  geography  (Heimathkunde)  ought  to  be 
the  first  in  a  geographical  course.    Perhaps  you   Home  Qeo- 
will  expect  that  I  should  be  logical,  and  proceed  sraPhy- 
in  the  same  way,  next  to  the  general  geography  of  the  parish, 
afterwards  to  that  of  the  county  you  live  in,  its  physical  fea- 
tures, its  chief  towns  and  industries,  then  to  a  description  of 
England,  afterwards  to  that  of  Europe,  and  finally  to  a  general 
description  of  the  world  on  which  we  live.     But  I  am  not  pre- 


316     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

pared  to  push  a  theory — even  one  which  is  founded,  as  this  is, 
on  a  true  principle — to  an  impracticable  and  absurd  extent. 
We  must  learn  to  think  of  the  various  parts  of  knowledge,  not 
only  in  what  seems  their  natural  sequence,  but  also  in  the  light 
of  their  relative  importance.  You  cannot  measure  the  value  of 
geographical  facts  by  a  formula,  or  say  that  their  importance 
diminishes  as  the  square  of  the  distance.  The  earliest  geo- 
graphical ideas  may  well  be  those  derived  from  home  and  its 
surroundings;  but  these  ideas  require  next  to  be  properly  local- 
ized, and  shown  in  relation  to  the  size  and  form  of  the  world 
itself.  A  good  way  of  doing  this  is  first  to  help  the  children 
to  refer  the  map  of  the  school  and  its  surroundings  to  an  ord- 
nance map  of  the  parish  or  division  of  the  county;  then  to  mark 
this  larger  division  on  a  map  of  England,  afterwards  to  show 
England  on  a  map  of  Europe,  and  then  identify  it  on  a  globe. 
Thus  by  degrees  you  establish  a  sense  of  proportion,  and  help 
the  child  to  see  his  bearings,  so  to  speak,  and  the  place  he 
occupies  in  the  universe.  And  this  done,  it  is  well  to  proceed 
at  once,  by  the  help  of  a  globe,  to  give  some  very  general 
notion  of  the  shape  and  size  of  the  earth,  the  distribution  of 
land  and  water,  the  four  cardinal  points,  and  the  meaning  of 
the  simpler  geographical  terms. 

To  make  these  lessons  intelligible  you  will  need  pictures  or 
Lessons  on  diagrams,  or  better  still,  you  will  mould  before 
earth  and  the  class,  in  sand  or  soft  clay,  a  rough  representa- 

wit(*r 

tion  of  a  range  of  mountains,  or  a  group  of  moun- 
tains and  valleys,  and  will  then  show  how  water  comes  out 
from  the  glaciers  or  springs,  and  sometimes  tumbles  over  steep 
rocks,  and  finds  its  way  down  the  sides,  and  so  forms  a  river  or 
a  lake.  You  will  draw  out  from  them  that  a  river  will  be  more 
rapid  in  a  steep  valley,  more  sluggish  when  it  flows  through  a 
flat  country;  that  it  will  increase  in  size  as  it  goes  on  and  re- 
ceives affluents,  and  that  the  wide  openings  by  which  it  enters 
the  sea  are  often  convenient  places  for  the  formation  of  harbors 
and  for  commercial  stations,  but  that  sometimes  it  cannot  find 
free  course,  and  is  pent  up  between  hills  and  rocks.  Then  you 


Elementary  Lessons.  317 

will  explain  the  points  of  the  compass,  not  of  course  in  the  way 
Avhich  some  teachers  adopt,  of  referring  everything  to  a  wall 
map,  so  that  when  you  ask  children  to  point  to  the  North,  they 
point  up  to  the  ceiling;  but  by  leading  them  to  know  the  actual 
bearings  of  their  own  school-room  and  the  surrounding  streets 
and  buildings.  This  may  be  done  most  easily  by  inviting  them 
to  step  out  with  you  at  12  o'clock  on  a  sunny  day,  and  mark 
in  the  playground  the  line  which  the  shadow  of  an  upright 
stick  projects.  It  is  not  a  bad  plan  to  have  this  line  painted 
on  a  part  of  the  floor  of  the  school-room,  so  that  the  points  of 
the  compass  shall  be  distinctly  known,  and  every  time  N.  S.  E. 
or  W.  is  mentioned  the  scholars  shall  be  required  to  point  to  it. 
You  will  do  well  to  have  in  the  school  a  mariner's  compass, 
and  to  draw  attention  (1)  to  the  immense  importance,  especially 
to  sailors,  of  knowing  their  bearings  at  times  when  neither  sun 
nor  stars  are  visible  to  indicate  them;  and  (2)  to  the  wonderful 
fact  of  the  tendency  of  the  magnetic  needle  always  to  point  one 
way — a  fact  as  you  know  wholly  unique  in  the  whole  range  of 
physical  science,  in  itself  inexplicable,  and  at  the  same  time 
most  curiously  adapted  to  solve  one  practical  problem  in  naviga- 
tion, which  as  far  as  we  know  is  absolutely  insoluble  by  all  the 
manifold  resources  of  science  in  other  directions. 

These  elementary  lessons  on  the  size  and  general  conforma- 
tion of  the  earth  may  at  first  include  an  explana-   Order  of 

tion  of  the  equator  and  the  poles,  and  of  the  fact  geographi- 
cal facts 
that  the  sun,  though  seen  by  us  always  to  the 

south  at  noon,  is  seen  by  people  on  the  equator  over  their  heads, 
and  by  people  living  south  of  the  equator  to  the  north  of  them 
at  that  hour.  But  it  is  not  at  this  stage  expedient  to  include 
any  details  about  meridians,  or  the  measurement  of  latitude  and 
longitude  by  degrees.  Afterwards  it  seems  best  to  proceed  at 
once  to  the  general  geography  of  England,  with  especial  refer- 
ence to  the  county  in  which  the  scholar  lives,  to  its  boundaries, 
its  hills  and  rivers  and  principal  towns.  Next  in  order  should 
come  a  general  description  of  the  chief  countries  of  Europe 
and  of  the  chief  British  Colonies;  afterwards  the  geography  of 


318     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

Scotland  and  Ireland  in  detail,  and  then  latitude  and  longitude 
and  as  much  else  in  the  way  of  descriptive  geography  as  you 
have  time  to  give.  In  French  schools,  little  manuals  of  what 
we  should  call  County  Geography  are  in  extensive  use.  There 
is  one  for  each  Department;  but  a  little  prefatory  chapter  about 
the  size  and  shape  of  the  world,  the  points  of  the  compass,  and 
the  position  of  France  upon  the  globe,  forms  a  common  intro- 
duction to  all  the  manuals  alike.  There  is  a  map  of  the  De- 
partment; an  account  of  its  name,  size,  limits,  area,  its  chief 
industries  and  geological  formation,  its  natural  productions,  the 
famous  men  it  has  produced,  its  historic  associations,  and  a 
great  number  of  details,  administrative,  statistical,  commercial; 
besides  engravings  of  the  cathedral  of  the  chef -lieu,  and  of  any 
buildings,  monuments,  or  scenes  for  which  the  Department  is 
famed.  The  French  child  is  generally  expected  to  master  this 
little  manual  of  the  part  of  the  country  in  which  he  lives  before 
he  is  asked  to  learn  topographical  details  about  more  distant 
places. 

So  much  for  the  order  which  seems,  on  the  whole,  most 
N  reasonable  for  the  teaching  of  geographical  facts. 

juence  of      You  will  not  expect  this  order  to  be  preserved  in 


or  impor-  text-books,  and  there  is  no  subject  hi  which  it  is 
tance  in  this  more  necessary  for  you  to  emancipate  yourselves 
from  the  domination  of  text-books,  and  to  arrange 
your  facts  for  yourselves.  For  in  Reading  and  Writing  there 
is  at  least  a  sequence  of  difficulty;  in  Grammar  and  Arithmetic 
a  philosophical  sequence;  and  in  History  the  sequence  of 
chronology.  But  in  Geography  there  is  no  sequence  at  all. 
Except  by  accident  or  association,  there  is  no  one  topographical 
fact  which  is  more  important  than  any  other,  or  which  can 
claim  to  be  learned  earlier.  To  every  man  his  own  home  and 
his  own  work  make  the  centre  of  the  world;  and  the  value  for 
him  of  all  information  about  the  rest  of  the  world  is  entirely 
relative.  It  is  not  absolute.  Yet  text-books,  after  all,  cannot 
recognize  this,  and  are  bound  to  give  in  equal  detail  facts,  some 
of  which,  from  this  point  of  view,  are  important  and  some  Tin- 


Order  of  Teaching.  319 

important.  The  compilers  of  such  books  must  arrange  their 
facts  in  a  certain  order  so  as  to  be  easy  of  reference.  So  they 
are  fain  to  begin  with  Europe,  then  to  take  Asia,  then  Africa, 
then  America,  and  finally  Australia;  and  in  the  hands  of  a 
mere  routine  teacher,  the  patient  school -boy, — "for  sufferance 
is  the  badge  of  all  his  tribe," — is  forced  to  learn  a  good  deal 
about  Denmark  and  the  Caucasus,  about  the  Burrampooter  and 
the  Lake  Nyanza,  before  he  knows  anything  of  New  York  or 
of  our  colonies. 

It  is  therefore  essential  that  the  teacher  should  exercise  his 
own  choice  and  judgment  in  respect  to  the  order  The  teacher 
of  importance  and  of  usefulness  in  which  geo-  to  fashion  his 
graphical  facts  are  related,  and  therefore  to  the  own< 
order  in  which  they  should  be  taught.  That  order  will  not  be 
always  the  same.  At  this  moment  the  geography  of  the  S.  E. 
of  Europe  and  the  N.  W.  border  of  India  is  more  useful  to  us 
than  the  geography  of  the  Spanish  peninsula.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  present  century  it  was  otherwise.  You  have  to  ask 
yourselves  not  only  what  are  the  facts  to  which  the  books  and 
the  examiners  assign  prominence;  but  what  are  the  facts  which 
it  behoves  a  well-instructed  and  intelligent  person  to  know.  A 
great  many  names  and  statistics  are  learned  by  school-boys 
which  no  educated  person  is  expected  to  know,  or  would  care 
to  remember  if  he  did.  To  some  extent  this  is  inevitable;  but 
there  would  not  be  so  large  a  discrepancy  between  the  sort  of 
knowledge  a  school-boy  has  from  his  lesson-book,  and  the  sort 
of  knowledge  of  which  you  yourself  feel  most  the  need  when 
you  mingle  in  society,  or  read  a  piece  of  contemporary  history, 
if  teachers  thought  of  tener  of  the  occasions  on  which  geograph- 
ical knowledge  is  wanted  and  the  uses  to  which  it  has  to  be 
put. 

I  will  add  some  miscellaneous  suggestions  about  geographical 
teaching: 

Take  care  to  have  a  globe  always  at  hand  to  correct  the 
erroneous  impressions  which  are  always  produced  by  flat  maps, 
because  they  are  plane  representations  of  parts  of  a  spherical 


320     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

surface,  and  because  they  are  almost  necessarily  on  very  dif- 
Use  of  a  f  erent  scales.  A  map  of  England  bangs  by  the 
globe.  gide  of  one  representing  Europe,  and  is  generally 

quite  as  large,  and  there  is  no  way  of  rectifying  the  impression 
except  by  showing  the  position  and  relative  sizes  of  both  on  flic 
globe.  The  old  globes  in  stands  are  far  less  useful  than  port- 
able globes.  I  need  hardly  say  that  a  celestial  globe  is  utterly 
misleading.  Use  the  globe  also  to  show  how  the  sun  comes  on 
to  the  meridian  of  different  places  in  succession  at  different 
times;  and  from  the  fact  that  the  earth  revolves  round  its  axis  in 
34  hours,  deduce  a  rough  general  rule  for  determining  the  times 
at  different  places,  according  to  the  number  of  degrees  of 
longitude.  For  example  you  point  out  that  in  our  Lat.,  51  ^  N., 
the  value  of  a  degree  of  longitude  is  to  that  of  a  degree  of 
longitude  on  the  great  circle  of  the  equator  as  37  to  60.  Say 
approximately  then  that  as  the  great  circle  as  well  as  all  the 
parallels  of  latitude  are  divided  into  360  degrees,  and  as  the 
earth  revolves  in  34  hours,  15  degrees  on  any  parallel  represents 
an  hour's  difference  of  time;  but  15°  on  the  equator  mean  ^ 
of  a  circumference  of  34000  miles:  hence  on  the  equator  1000 
miles  E.  or  W.  represent  a  difference  of  one  hour  in  time.  But 
in  our  latitude  we  may  reckon  that  about  600  miles  E.  or  W. 
represent  an  hour;  and  that  thus  a  telegram  from  Constanti- 
nople which  is  about  30  degrees  to  our  E.  or  about  1300  miles, 
and  which  has  the  sun  on  its  meridian  two  hours  before  us, 
may  be  delivered  in  London  apparently  at  an  earlier  hour  than 
that  at  which  it  is  transmitted.  At  this  moment,  e.g.  it  is  3 
o'clock  here,  it  is  4  at  Constantinople,  and  it  is  quite  conceivable 
that  a  message  transmitted  thence  and  dated  4  p.m.  might  reach 
us  by  3. 

Call  attention  in  every  case  to  the  scale  of  a  map,  and  give 
Judging  dis-  exercises  in  judging  approximate  distances.  Show 
tances.  e  gt  ^  a  map  of  England  what  number  of  miles  is 

represented  by  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  sheet  respectively, 
and  lead  the  scholars  to  exercise  themselves  in  determining  the 
approximate  distances  between  towns  or  other  places.  In 


The  Use  of  Maps.  321 

fashioning  for  yourself  a  map,  such  as  has  been  described,  of  the 
parish  or  district  in  which  the  school  is  situated,  seek  to  enlist 
the  services  of  the  children  themselves;  and  invite  them  to  sug- 
gest other  objects  or  places,  and  when  they  make  a  copy  of  it, 
require  each  scholar  to  put  into  position  and  to  mark  specially 
the  site  of  neighboring  buildings,  as  well  as  of  the  school,  and 
their  proper  distances. 

Do  not  rely  wholly  on  maps  with  names  printed  on  them. 
The  habit  of  setting  children  to  look  vaguely  for  The  use  Of 
a  place  on  the  map,  which  merely  means  looking  MaPs- 
for  a  certain  printed  word,  is  very  useless.  Nothing  is  learned 
of  the  true  position  of  countries  by  this  means.  The  best  maps 
are  outline  maps  on  a  large  scale  without  names;  and  best  of 
all  those  which  are  drawn  in  outline  by  the  teacher  himself  on 
a  black-board,  and  filled  in  item  by  item,  as  each  new  fact  is 
elicited  by  questions  or  descriptions.  And  do  not  forget  that 
the  knowledge  of  the  mere  names  and  positions  of  places  is 
worth  little  or  nothing  unless  the  scholar  has  some  interesting 
associations  with  them.  If  you  are  asked  to  learn  the  name 
and  position  of  a  place  per  se,  the  memory  refuses  and  rightly 
refuses  to  retain  it,  because  it  has  no  organic  connection  with 
anything  else  you  know  or  wish  to  know.  The  best  knowledge 
of  mere  topography  is  gained  incidentally,  in  connection  with 
reading  lessons,  with  lessons  on  history  or  familiar  objects,  with 
the  tracing  of  imaginary  voyages  and  travels.  The  map  should 
be  always  at  hand,  and  when  referred  to  in  order  to  identify  a 
place,  of  which  you  are  learning  something  else  than  its  mere 
geographical  position,  is  seen  to  serve  a  useful  purpose  and 
helps  to  impress  a  fact  on  the  memory.  Indeed  every  time  a 
map  is  referred  to  for  such  a  purpose,  something  is  done  to  im- 
press geographical  facts  on  the  eye.  And  this  itself  is  a  useful 
lesson. 

Connect  from  the  first  Physical  geography  with  that  which 
is  called  Political.    By  the  former  of  course  is   physical 
meant  the  geography  of  the  world  as  it  would   Geography, 
have  been  if  man  had  never  lived  on  it;  by  the  latter,  is  meant 
21 


322     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

all  those  facts  which  are  the  result  of  man's  residence  on  the 
earth.  But  the  second  class  of  facts  is  nearly  always  to  be 
accounted  for  by  a  study  of  the  first.  The  earth  is  wonder- 
fully designed  for  human  habitation.  It  is  our  granary,  our 
vineyard,  our  lordly  pleasure-house.  In  some  parts  nature  is 
bountiful,  in  others  penurious;  over  some  she  sheds  beauty,  in 
others  she  offers  material  prosperity:  at  one  place  she  hides 
treasure,  at  another  she  spreads  it  on  the  surface.  In  some 
places  she  invites  neighboring  peoples  to  intercourse,  in  others 
she  erects  impenetrable  barriers  between  them:  in  some  she 
lures  the  inhabitants  to  peaceful  prosaic  industry,  in  others 
terrifies  them  by  displays  of  awful  and  inexplicable  forces. 
And  even  of  those  regions  which  she  seems  not  to  have  de- 
signed for  our  use  —  the  torrid  desert,  the  lonely  rocky  moun- 
tains, and  the  mysterious  ice-bound  regions  of  the  poles,  may 
we  not  truly  say,  that  they  too  are  part  of  the  bountiful  pro- 
vision she  has  made  for  our  many-sided  wants?  For  they  im- 
press and  exalt  our  imagination,  they  minister  to  our  sense  of 
beauty;  and  yet  at  the  same  time  they  humble  our  pride,  and 
make  us  feel  that  there  is  something  more  in  the  world  than  is 
immediately  and  easily  intelligible  to  us.  They  give  us  in 
short  a  sense  of  the  mystery,  the  vastness  and  the  sumptuous- 
ness  of  the  world,  which  is  very  necessary  for  a  right  estimate 
of  our  own  true  place  in  it. 

And  with  such  considerations  before  us  we  see  how  curiously 
mere     hsic^  conditions  in  which  man  is 


Its  influence 

on  national      placed  determine  his  habits,  the  life  he  leads,  the 

ter'  kind  of  societies  he  forms,  the  character  and  the 
history  of  different  races.  You  think  of  our  own  fair  island  — 
"  this  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea"  —  you  turn  the  globe 
into  the  position  in  which  England  is  at  the  top  and  in  the 
centre,  and  you  see  how  advantageously  she  is  placed,  in  the 
middle  of  the  hemisphere  of  land,  near  enough  to  partake  of 
all  the  advantages  of  Western  Europe,  but  far  enough  off  to 
encourage  in  her  people  the  sense  of  independence:  with  her 
extensive  coasts,  her  excellent  harbors,  her  hardy  yet  temperate 


Influence  of  Physical  Conditions  On  Nations.  323 

climate — a  climate  of  which  Charles  II.  said  that  it  allowed 
men  to  go  about  their  work  with  less  interruption  and  on 
a  greater  number  of  days  than  in  any  other  country  in  the 
world;  and  you  cannot  dissociate  the  thought  of  our  insular 
position,  our  climate  and  resources,  from  the  character  and 
history  of  our  people.  Take  Holland  as  another  example.  It 
is  low,  flat,  moist;  hence  suited  for  pasture  rather  than  tillage; 
hence  favorable  for  the  rearing  of  cattle,  for  butter  and  for 
cheese;  and  because  so  low  that  the  encroachments  of  the  sea 
can  only  be  prevented  by  enormous  and  costly  dykes,  and  by 
incessant  watchfulness,  its  inhabitants  are  distinguished  by 
foresight  and  endurance,  by  thrift  and  industry;  and  because 
for  these  reasons  the  scenery  is  flat,  dull,  and  uninspiring,  the 
inhabitants  are  not  distinguished  by  the  wealth  of  their  im- 
agination or  the  splendor  of  their  literature. 
Look  again  at  the  vast  alluvial  plains  watered  by  the  Nile,  the 

Euphrates,  the  Indus,  and  the  Yellow  River.    The   T11    , 

Illustrations 
soil  is  rich,  the  wants  of  the  people  few,  the  induce-   of  the  effect 

ment  to  exertion  small.  There  you  have  found  in  conditions  on 
all  ages  of  the  world  a  teeming  population,  agri-  national  his- 
cultural  and  stationary,  attached  to  the  soil,  con- 
servative in  habits  of  thought,  easily  subjugated  and  kept  in 
subjection;  and  there  have  been  appropriately  placed  the  great 
despotic  monarchies.  On  the  other  hand,  look  at  small  mari- 
time states  like  ancient  Phoanicia,  Greece,  and  Italy,  separated 
by  ridges  of  hills,  inhabited  by  little  communities,  isolated,  yet 
compelled  sometimes  to  fight  for  their  liberty;  hence  jealous  of 
each  other,  and  hence  self-asserting,  their  history  full  of  records 
of  intestine  divisions,  and  of  heroic  struggles  for  liberty.  Here 
you  cannot  fail  to  see  a  connection  between  the  free  vigorous 
life  of  early  Rome  and  of  the  Etruscan  and  Greek  republics, 
and  the  physical  conditions  under  which  the  people  lived. 

Or  contrast  with  the  great  communities  which  have  formed 
the  Egyptian,  the  Assyrian,  and  the  Chinese  Empires,  the  state 
of  the  people  on  the  Great  Tartar  steppes  where  herbage  is 
scanty,  where  a  settled  habitation  is  almost  impossible,  and 


324     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

where  nomadic,  and  therefore  restless,  wild,  suspicious,  aiid 
warlike  races  find  an  appropriate  home.  In  like  manner  you 
may  trace  the  influence  of  climate  in  some  countries  by  the 
way  in  which  it  enervates  the  laborer,  and  in  others  by  the  way 
in  which  it  impels  him  to  exertion  and  calls  out  his  higher 
qualities.  You  may  even  see  how  the  aspects  of  nature  affect 
the  national  character  in  many  places:  for  where  physical  phe- 
nomena are  equable  and  uniform  as  in  temperate  climates,  and 
man  has  learned  how  to  control  nature,  you  find  often  a  reso- 
lute self-reliant  people,  proud  of  their  strength  and  encouraged 
to  use  it;  but  in  regions  subject  to  frequent  earthquakes  and 
convulsions,  where  the  aspects  of  nature  are  formidable,  and 
its  phenomena  on  too  vast  a  scale  to  be  subject  to  human  con- 
trol, you  will  often  find  a  timorous  superstitious  people,  with- 
out enterprise  or  any  of  that  cheerful  hope  which  animates  to 
intrepid  discoveries  and  great  inventions. 

I  must  not  stay  now  to  pursue  this  line  of  inquiry.  Those 
of  you  who  would  like  to  see  how  fertile  such  researches  are, 
will  do  well  to  read  the  second  chapter  of  Buckle,  "on  the  in- 
fluence exercised  by  physical  laws  over  the  organization  of 
society  and  the  character  of  individuals, "  and  hi  that  chapter 
you  will  find,  amidst  much  which  is  crude  and  speculative,  and 
a  few  unverified  and  hasty  generalizations,  many  valuable 
truths  and  suggestive  hints.  In  Mr.  Grove's  excellent  little 
book  on  Geography  you  will  find  similar  material.  But  I  want 
you  to  feel  that  physical  geography  is  the  basis  of  all  true  geo- 
graphical teaching;  that  here,  as  hi  other  subjects,  it  is  not 
only  the  details  which  are  of  value,  but  also  the  tie  that  binds 
them  together,  and  that  all  mere  topography— all  political 
administration  and  commercial  geography  must  ultimately  con- 
nect itself  with  a  right  understanding  of  such  matters  as  soil, 
climate,  shape,  size,  geology,  and  natural  resources.  An  ac- 
quaintance with  geology  is  especially  helpful  in  making  physi- 
cal geography  understood.  A  teacher  who  is  skilled  in  this 
subject,  and  can  make  a  right  use  of  the  comparison  between 
a  geological  map  and  an  ordinary  map  of  the  same  country, 


Maps.  325 

will  give  new  meaning  to  his  lessons;  will  be  able  to  say,  e.g., 
how  the  presence  of  chalk  or  sandstone  may  be  recognized  by 
the  contour  of  the  hills. 

Another  kind  of  tie  by  which  mere  geographical  facts  may 
be  bound  together  is  the  historical.  Associate  Historical 
therefore,  as  often  as  possible,  the  description  of  associations, 
places  with  the  memory  of  events  which  have  happened  in 
them.  "The  man,"  says  Johnson,  "is  little  to  be  envied 
whose  patriotism  would  not  gain  force  on  the  plains  of  Mara- 
thon, or  whose  piety  would  not  grow  warmer  among  the  rums 
of  lona."  Association  between  the  configuration  of  a  region, 
and  a  great  event  that  has  happened  in  it,  is  a  great  help  to  the 
recollection  both  of  history  and  geography  too.  Nobody  can 
read  Livy's  account  of  Hannibal's  passage  over  the  Alps, 
Macaulay's  siege  of  Londonderry,  Mr.  Carlyle's  account  of 
Frederick  the  Great's  campaign  in  Silesia,  or  of  Cromwell's 
battle  at  Dunbar,  without  seeing  a  new  meaning  in  geographi- 
cal study.  And  if  in  the  neighborhood  of  your  school  there 
is  any  spot  or  building  rendered  illustrious  by  its  association 
with  historical  events,  seek  as  far  as  you  can  to  explain  that 
association,  and  give  interest  to  it. 

As  to  maps,  the  use  of  which  is  so  obvious  that  they  need  no 

recommendation  from  me,  I  have  orily  four  ob-   , 

Maps, 
servations  to  make:  (1)  That  they  are  of  more 

value  after  your  descriptive  lesson  has  been  given  than  before; 
(2)  That  pupils  should  not  always  draw  the  whole  maps  as 
given  in  the  books,  but  parts  of  them — say  the  south  coast  of 
England,  or  the  county  of  Yorkshire— just  so  much  of  the 
map  as  is  necessary  to  illustrate  or  fix  the  particular  lesson  you 
have  given,  such  a  map  being  often  on  a  larger  scale  than  that 
in  the  atlas;  (3)  That  a  physical  map,  one  which  merely  repre- 
sents the  course  of  water,  the  position  of  coal,  the  prevalence 
of  pasture  land,  or  some  one  special  fact,  is  often  valuable; 
and  (4)  That  it  is  never  well  to  permit  coloring  or  ornamenta- 
tion of  any  kind  until  the  outline  has  been  carefully  examined 
and  found  to  be  correct. 


326     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

Further,  the  skilled  teacher  of  geography  ought  to  cultivate 
Power  of  *n  himself  tnc  power  of  vivid  and  picturesque 
verbal  de-  verbal  descriptions  of  the  aspect  and  contour  of 
any  country  he  has  seen.  You  can  only  acquire 
this  power  by  caring  about  such  details.  It  is  well  known  that 
Arnold's  lessons  to  his  Sixth  Form  on  history,  when  he  was 
reading  Livy  or  the  Anabasis,  were  wonderfully  vivified  by 
his  striking  descriptions  of  the  country  in  which  the  events 
took  place.  When  he  travelled,  he  kept  his  eyes  always  open, 
and  it  is  remarkable  how  often  in  his  letters  to  old  pupils,  who 
had  gone  to  some  distant  country,  he  wrote  to  them  hinting  at 
the  kind  of  things  which  an  observant  man  would  do  well  to 
look  for,  and  asking  for  the  result  of  such  observation  for  his 
own  information  and  enjoyment.  Here  is  part  of  such  a  letter 
written  to  Mr.  Gell,  who  had  gone  to  reside  in  Tasmania:  "  I 
hope  you  journalize  largely.  Every  tree,  plant,  stone,  and 
living  thing  is  strange  to  us  in  Europe,  and  capable  of  afford- 
ing interest.  Will  you  describe  to  me  the  general  aspect  of  the 
country  round  Hobart  Town?  To  this  day  I  never  could  meet 
•with  a  description  of  the  common  face  of  the  country  about 
New  York  or  Boston,  or  Philadelphia,  and  therefore  I  have  no 
distinct  ideas  of  it.  Is  your  country  plain  or  undulating,  your 
valleys  deep  or  shallow,  curving,  or  with  steep  sides  and  flat 
bottoms?  Are  your  fields  large  or  small,  parted  by  hedges  or 
stone  walls,  with  single  trees  about  them  or  patches  of  wood 
here  and  there?  Are  there  many  scattered  houses,  and  what 
are  they  built  of — brick,  wood,  or  stone?  And  what  are  the 
hills  and  streams  like — ridges  or  with  waving  summits, — with 
plain  sides  or  indented  with  combs,  full  of  springs  or  dry,  and 
what  is  their  geology?  I  can  better  fancy  the  actors  when  I 
have  a  notion  of  the  scene  on  which  they  are  acting." 

If  you  want  to  know  how  life-like  the  description  of  a 
Illustrations  countl7  can  be  made,  read  the  description  in 
of  descriptive  Scott's  Antiquary  of  the  sea  in  a  storm,  the  ac- 
geograp  y.  count  of  the  Western  Hebrides  in  Johnson's  Jour- 
ney, or  Black's  Princess  of  Thule,  Mr.  Bryce's  account  of  his 


Illustrations  of  Descriptive  Geography.     327 

ascent  of  Mount  Ararat,  or  some  of  the  passages  from  Hook- 
er's Himalayan  Journals,  from  Peaks,  Passes,  and  Glaciers,  or 
Wills's  Wanderings  in  the  High  Alps.  In  this  department  of 
teaching  it  is  pre-eminently  needful  that  the  teacher  should 
keep  his  mind  open  to  the  events  which  are  going  on  around 
him,  and  try  to  utilize  the  information  which  newspapers  and 
new  books  of  travel  and  adventure  will  furnish.  His  own  ex- 
perience will  also  help  him  to  give  vividness  to  his  lessons. 
After  a  foreign  journey  he  will  invite  his  class  to  have  a  lesson 
on  the  Rhine,  on  the  aspect  of  the  mediaeval  towns  of  Belgium 
or  North  Italy,  on  an  Alpine  ascent,  on  the  English  Cathedrals, 
or  the  English  Lakes.  Photographs  and  pictures  from  illus- 
trated journals  will  all  help  to  give  reality  to  the  impressions 
you  want  to  convey. 

Do  not  complain  of  all  this  as  desultory  and  unscientific. 
Remember  that  this  is  the  one  subject  in  which  you  are  least 
bound  to  preserve  any  predetermined  order,  and  in  which  mis- 
cellaneous lessons,  provided  they  are  vivid  and  interesting,  are 
quite  legitimate,  and  serve  the  intended  purpose  well.  That 
purpose  is  to  increase  the  scholars'  interest  in  the  world  in 
which  they  live,  to  awaken  their  observant  faculties,  and  to 
help  them  to  recognize  the  order,  the  wealth  and  beauty  of  the 
visible  universe.  If  you  do  not  do  this,  Geography  is  a  veiy 
barren  subject,  even  though  your  scholar  knows  with  impar- 
tial exactness  the  populations,  and  the  latitude  and  longitude 
of  all  the  capital  cities  in  the  two  hemispheres,  and  the  names 
and  lengths  of  all  the  rivers  in  the  world.  But  if  you  do  this, 
you  may  be  well  content  with  almost  any  portion  of  the  sub- 
ject which  is  thoroughly  mastered.  For  he  who  has  been  led 
even  by  accident,  or  the  course  of  your  special  experience,  to 
examine  one  or  two  countries,  to  get  a  mental  picture  of  their 
physical  characteristics,  and  to  see  how  those  characteristics 
affect  the  situation  of  the  towns,  the  nature  of  the  products, 
and  of  the  trade,  the  employments,  the  government,  and  even 
the  idiosyncrasies  and  the  history  of  the  inhabitants,  will  have 
in  his  mind  a  typical  example  of  the  way  in  which  geography 


328     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

ought  to  be  studied,  and  will— as  the  reading  and  experience 
of  after-life  cause  him  to  be  interested  one  by  one  in  other 
countries — know  better  how  to  obtain  his  information  and  to 
make  a  right  use  of  it. 

Although  all  these  considerations  point  to  the  necessity  of 
oral  lessons,  I  am  far  from  saying  that  you  should  be  content 
with  the  somewhat  vague  and  miscellaneous  impressions  which 
such  teaching,  if  relied  upon  alone,  is  apt  to  leave.  Text- 
books, catalogues,  tables,  statistical  statements,  and  memory- 
work  have  their  value,  and  must  be  resorted  to  by  all  who 
wish  to  give  definiteness  to  such  lessons.  But  the  time  to  use 
them  is  after  the  oral  teaching,  not  before  it  or  instead  of  it. 

Geography  is  a  good  type  of  that  class  of  subject  which  has 

its  chief  value  as  information  useful  in  itself,  and 
Fact-lore. 

which  has  comparatively  few  ramifications  into 

other  regions  of  acquirement  or  of  intellectual  life.  There  is 
a  large  mass  of  serviceable  knowledge  which  does  not  come 
within  the  ordinary  range  of  school  subjects,  and  which  yet  a 
school  might  help  to  impart — knowledge  about  the  substances 
we  see  and  handle,  about  the  objects  around  us,  about  the 
things  which  are  going  on  in  the  world.  We  must  not,  in  our 
zeal  for  those  parts  of  instruction  which  are  specially  educa- 
tive, lose  sight  of  the  value  of  even  empirical  instruction  about 
these  things.  To  impart  facts  is  not  a  teacher's  highest  busi- 
ness, but  it  is  a  substantial  part  of  his  business.  It  is  so,  not 
merely  because  it  is  disgraceful  for  a  person  to  be  ill-informed 
about  common  things.  It  is  pitiable  to  measure  the  worth  of 
any  knowledge  merely  by  the  degree  in  which  it  is  a  credit  to 
gam  it,  or  a  discredit  to  be  without  it.  The  best  reasons  for 
seeking  to  give  to  your  pupils  a  good  basis  of  facts  are  that  the 
possession  of  them  is  very  useful;  that  all  future  scientific  gen- 
eralization presupposes  them;  that  they  furnish  pabulum  for 
the  thought  and  the  imagination;  and  generally  that  life  is  rich 
and  interesting  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  things  we  know 
and  care  about. 


Object-lessons.  329 


So  at  every  part  of  a  school  course  provision  should  be  made 
for  instruction  in  matters  of  fact  which  lie  outside  the  domain 
of  the  regular  book-subjects.  "What  is  known  in  the  German 
schools  as  Natur-Jcunde  and  Erd-kunde  fulfils  this  description 
most  nearly.  But  both  terms  are  restricted  as  to  the  class  of 
topics  they  include.  The  information  or  useful  knowledge, 
now  in  view,  can  perhaps  be  best  described  by  the  hybird 
term  Fact-lore.  It  has,  no  donbt,  a  definite  educational  pur- 
pose, and  may  help  to  develop  faculty  in  a  useful  way.  But 
its  main  object  is  to  supply  facts,  to  excite  an  intelligent  in- 
terest in  the  common  objects  and  phenomena  which  surround 
the  scholars  to  teach  them  how  to  see  and  to  handle,  and  to 
draw  simple  inferences  from  what  the  senses  tell  them,  and 
to  prepare  the  way  for  the  later  and  more  regular  study  of 
science. 

In  Infant  Schools  this  aim  is  accomplished  by  means  of  what 
are  called  Object  lessons.  A  teacher  takes  a  piece  object-les- 
of  Coal  in  his  hand  and  asks  the  children  what  it  sons- 
is.  He  asks  them  to  look  at  it,  and  tell  him  what  they  can  see, 
that  it  is  black  and  shiny;  to  handle  it,  and  to  find  out  that  it 
is  hard,  that  parts  of  it  are  easily  rubbed  off,  and  that  it  is  of  a 
certain  weight.  He  asks  what  would  happen  if  he  put  it  into 
the  fire,  and  he  finds  that  they  can  tell  him  not  only  that  it 
burns,  but  that  there  is  a  gaseous  flame  at  first,  afterwards  a 
duller  burning,  and  finally  nothing  left  but  cinders.  He 
makes  them  tell  its  familiar  uses.  Then  he  asks  if  they  would 
like  to  know  something  more  about  it,  and  he  proceeds  to  show 
a  picture  of  a  coal-mine,  to  describe  the  gloom,  the  heat  of  the 
pit,  the  mode  of  getting  down  to  it  and  out  of  it,  and  the  dan- 
gers to  which  miners  are  exposed.  He  tells  them  how  many 
ages  ago  all  this  coal  was  vegetable  matter;  he  produces  a 
piece  of  coal,  which  he  has  chosen  because  its  fossil  character 
is  well  marked;  he  lets  the  children  look  at  and  handle  it,  and 
then  he  shows  pictures  of  the  various  trees  and  plants  which 
formed  the  material  of  which  coal  is  formed.  And  at  the  end 
his  black-board  presents  a  summary  of  the  lesson,  showing  in 


330     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 


succession  the  qualities,  the  uses,  and  the  history  of  coal,  and 
the  mode  of  procuring  it. 

All  this  is  well,  and  in  the  hands  of  a  good  teacher  fulfils 
Their  short-  valuable  purposes.  It  has  in  it  some  of  the  cha- 
comings.  racteristics  we  have  insisted  on  for  all  good  teach- 
ing. For  it  kindles  the  interest  of  children  by  dealing  at  first 
with  what  is  fairly  within  the  range  of  their  own  experience, 
and  yet  before  it  is  finished  it  carries  them  into  a  new  region 
distinctly  beyond  that  range.  It  is  well  calculated  to  awaken 
curiosity  and  to  stimulate  the  observing  and  inquiring  faculty. 
But,  then,  like  so  many  other  good  things,  it  is  apt  to  degen- 
erate. Pestalozzi,  David  Stow,  and  the  Mayos  have  laid  down 
rules;  model  lessons  have  been  published,  and  accordingly  it  is 
my  lot  to  hear  a  number  of  so-called  object  lessons,  which  are 
very  barren  of  any  useful  result  whatever.  Because  Dr.  Mayo's 
book  on  object  lessons  gives  a  list  of  the  qualities  of  glass — 
Brittle,  Transparent,  Hard,  Fusible,  Useful,  Inelastic,  etc.,  one 
is  doomed  to  hear  one  object  after  another  treated  in  exactly 
the  same  way,  and  to  see  it  solemnly  recorded  on  a  board  that 
a  cow  is  graminivorous,  or  that  an  orange  is  opaque.  The 
black-board  exercise  is  a  great  stumbling-block  to  unskilful 
teachers.  They  are  told  beforehand  at  the  Training  Colleges 
that  it  should  present  at  the  end  of  the  lesson  a  complete  sum- 
mary, arranged  under  heads,  of  all  that  the  lesson  contains,  and 
so  they  exhibit  throughout  the  lesson  a  much  greater  anxiety 
to  get  the  matter  on  to  the  board  than  to  get  it  into  the  under- 
standing of  the  scholars.  Moreover,  lessons  of  this  kind  are 
apt  to  be  desultory  and  unconnected,  and  to  be  given  at  irregu- 
lar intervals.  And  although  they  occur  in  the  Infant  Schools 
with  marked  advantage  under  the  name  of  "object  lessons," 
they  are  often  discontinued  altogether  for  the  whole  of  the  in- 
terval between  the  Infant  School  and  the  time  when  the  regu- 
lar teaching  of  Science  begins. 

But  through  all  that  interval  some  conversational  lessons  on 
familiar  objects  should  be  regularly  given.  They  are  needed, 
as  we  have  said,  partly  to  keep  up  that  habit  of  observant  in- 


General  Information.  331 

terest  in  what  is  going  on  in  the  world,  -which  the  Infant 
School  tries  to  convey,  and  partly  to  furnish  the   Subjects  for 
materials  for  future  reflection  and  generalization.    otSercoiiec- 
The  subjects  available  for  this  purpose  are  in-   tive  lessons. 
numerable;  it  will  suffice  here  to  indicate  a  few  of  them: 

(a)  Common  substances—  glass,  iron,  coal,  silk,  money. 

(b)  Natural  History—  trees,  flowers,  animals,  wood. 

(c)  Food  and  how  to  produce  it—  wheat,  wine,  oil,  meat,  honey. 

(d)  Manufactures—  glass,  steel,  cloth,  pottery. 

(e)  Natural  phenomena—  wind,  storms,  change  of  seasons. 

(/)  Forms  of  human  employment  —  farms,  vineyards,  life  in  a  factory, 
a  mine,  a  military  station,  a  studio. 

(g)  Construction  of  simple  machines—  &  hinge,  a  knife,  a  lock,  a  watch, 
a  pump,  a  gas  meter,  a  pulley. 

(h)  Incidents  of  travel—  a,  voyage,  a  mountain  ascent,  a  polar  expedi- 
tion, a  shipwreck. 

(t)  Local  events—  &•  famine,  harvest,  an  exhibition,  a  festival,  the  con- 
struction of  a  new  railway. 

(fc)  Events  in  National  and  Municipal  life  —  the  opening  of  Parlia- 
ment, a  general  Election,  the  Assizes. 

(0  Buildings  and  public  monuments—  their  architecture  and  their 
history. 

I  am  far  from  wishing  to  assign  a  prominent  place  in  a 
school-course  to  miscellaneous  topics  like  these.  But  some 
room  should  be  reserved  for  them  in  your  programme.  One 
half  -hour's  lesson  in  the  week  will  suffice,  and  if  your  assist- 
ants are  encouraged  to  take  their  turns  in  preparing  lessons  on 
subjects  with  which  they  are  specially  conversant,  and  will 
carefully  preserve  their  notes,  with  a  record  of  the  day  on 
which  the  lesson  was  given,  you  will  find  many  incidental  ad- 
vantages accrue  both  to  them  and  to  the  school. 

In  forming  a  plan  for  such  a  course  for  a  term  you  will  do 
well,  without  making  it  so  inelastic  as  to  exclude  „ 

They  should 
any  interesting  topic  which    may  unexpectedly   haveadefl- 


arise,  to  have  in  view  that  most  of  the  lessons  of 

this  kind  ought  to  serve  as  helps  and  preliminaries   scientific  pur- 

to  the  ultimate  teaching  of  science,  and  should 

therefore  be  given  in  a  pre-determined  order,  and  with  distinct 


332     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  Facts. 

reference  to  the  regular  instruction  in  science  which  is  intended 
to  be  taken  up  hereafter.  The  scientific  spirit  and  the  scientific 
method  should  be  present,  but  should  not  be  obtruded.  Scien- 
tific nomenclature  should  be  sparingly  used,  and  then  only  when 
the  need  for  it  has  become  apparent.  It  is  well  that  children 
should  be  made,  even  in  the  lowest  classes,  to  think  about  the 
formation  of  a  glacier,  the  boiling  of  water,  or  the  making  of 
iron  into  steel.  But  each  separate  fact  of  this  sort  should  be 
correlated  with  some  other  which  is  like  it,  so  that  an  elemen- 
tary perception  at  least  may  be  gained  of  the  nature  of  physical 
law. 

Be  careful  to  consider  beforehand  how  much  can  be  reason- 
They  should  a^7  taught  in  the  thirty  or  forty  minutes  you 
have  unity.  mean  to  devote  to  the  lesson.  The  great  fault  of 
most  of  these  lessons  is  that  they  attempt  too  much.  Consider 
well  that  you  have  need  at  the  end  of  each  division  of  the  sub- 
ject to  recapitulate  very  carefully,  and  to  make  sure  that  you 
have  been  followed;  and  that  certain  facts  must  be  accentuated 
by  repetition  and  by  writing.  Do  not  let  any  one  lesson  con- 
tain a  greater  number  of  new  truths  or  thoughts  than  can  be 
fairly  grasped  and  remembered  in  one  short  effort;  or  than  can 
be  so  fitted  together  as  to  leave  on  the  mind  a  sense  of  unity  and 
completeness. 

Let  your  black-board  summary  grow  up  under  your  hand  as 
Use  of  a  the  lesson  proceeds,  and  use  it  rather  for  record- 
black-board.  mg  vour  principal  conclusions,  at  the  end  of  each 
division  of  your  subject,  than  as  a  promise, — or  menace, — be- 
forehand of  what  you  are  going  to  do.  I  have  often  heard  lit- 
tle collective  lessons,  in  which  the  teacher  says  "now  we  are 
going  to  speak  of  the  'qualities;'  "  and  then  the  word  "quali- 
ties" is  gravely  written  down  on  the  board;  and  one  by  one 
various  adjectives  are  evolved  and  written  underneath  it.  All 
this  chills  and  repels  the  child  and  destroys  his  interest  in  the 
lesson.  He  does  not  care  about  "qualities."  He  is  not  pre- 
pared to  enter  with  you  into  an  investigation  of  the  qualities  of 
a  thing  which  at  present  he  knows  and  cares  little  or  nothing 


Technical  Terms.  333 

about.  But  if  you  will  first  interest  him  in  the  thing  and  make 
him  care  about  it;  then  discuss  in  succession  its  various  parts, 
attributes  and  uses;  there  is  no  harm  afterwards  in  recalling 
what  has  been  learned,  and  saying  "We  have  in  fact  all  this 
while  been  finding  out  the  qualities  of  this  thing;  and  we  will 
write  them  down."  But  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  enumerate 
all  the  qualities  of  each  object  as  it  comes  under  review.  When 
this  is  done,  the  lessons  on  objects  soon  become  monotonous 
and  very  wearisome.  Each  object  has  some  one  quality  which 
it  illustrates  better  than  another.  Thus  a  chief  characteristic 
of  glass  is  its  transparency,  of  India-rubber  is  its  elasticity,  of 
gold  is  its  ductility;  and  in  a  lesson  on  each  of  these  objects  it 
is  well  to  take  the  opportunity  of  calling  attention  to  the  one 
or  two  technical  terms  which  the  particular  object  best  illus- 
trates. 

No  single  lesson  should  have  many  technical  or  unfamiliar 
terms  in  it.  But  every  good  lesson  should  at  least  Technical 
introduce  the  learner  to  two  or  three  new  technical  terms- 
words,  and  make  a  distinct  addition  to  his  vocabulary.  Every 
lesson  in  fact  brings  to  light  some  name  or  formula  which  is 
specially  characteristic  of  the  new  knowledge  you  are  impart- 
ing, and  will  form  a  good  centre  round  which  recollections  will 
cluster  and  arrange  themselves  after  you  have  done.  All  such 
characteristic  terms,  names  and  formulae,  should  be  very  dis- 
tinctly written  and  underlined;  special  attention  should  be 
called  to  them,  and  recalled  at  the  end  of  the  lesson;  and  the 
question  may  be  asked  "  What  use  did  we  make  of  this  word?" 
Not  unf rcquently,  too,  the  half-dozen  words  which  have  been 
written  down  may  be  usefully  copied  down  to  furnish  material 
for  the  full  notes  that  have  to  be  prepared  as  home  lessons,  and 
to  serve  as  a  reminder  of  the  order  in  which  those  notes  are  to 
be  arranged. 

In  thinking  out  the  plan  of  any  such  oral  lesson,  it  is  very 
necessary  to  break  it  up  into  definite  portions,  that  you  may 
know  at  what  points  to  recapitulate.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to 
reveal  the  whole  of  that  plan  to  your  scholars.  Your  lesson 


334     Geography  and  the  Learning  of  l<act&. 

must  have  a  beginning,  a  middle  and  an  end,  and  will  be  map- 
Arrangement  ped  out  in  your  miml  with  tnis  view;  kut  there  k 

of  each  lesson  no  need  to  divide  it  ostentatiously  into  parts  before- 
in  sections.  ,  ,  -.  .  , 

hand,  and  say  what  you  are  going  to  do.    A  logical 

division  of  the  subject  is  necessary  for  you  as  part  of  your  plan 
of  workmanship,  but  the  consciousness  of  this  division  is  not 
always  helpful  to  the  learner.  He  is  not  concerned  with  the 
mechanism  of  teaching  or  with  the  philosophy  of  your  art. 
He  has  to  be  interested,  to  be  led  by  ways  which  he  knows  not, 
but  which  you  know,  and  have  clearly  predetermined.  But  to 
begin  with  any  display  of  the  logical  framework  of  your  lesson 
is  to  begin  at  the  wrong  end.  Not  to  speak  it  profanely,  do 
not  some  of  us, — patient  hearers  in  church — feel  a  little  rebelli- 
ous when  a  preacher  announces  beforehand  his  intention  to 
divide  his  discourse  into  three  parts,  and  then  to  conclude  with 
an  appeal  and  application.  "We  feel  instinctively  that  the 
whole  mechanism  of  firstly,  secondly,  and  thirdly,  was  perhaps 
very  useful  to  him  when  marshalling  his  own  thoughts  in  his 
study  beforehand,  but  that  it  is  no  business  of  ours.  We  are 
very  ready  to  welcome  the  facts,  the  teaching,  the  reasoning, 
the  inspiration,  it  may  be,  which  he  has  to  give;  but  the  more 
he  can  keep  his  homiletic  apparatus  in  the  background  the 
better. 

To  go  back  for  a  moment  to  our  main  subject  and  recapitu- 
late. We  have  had  before  us  Descriptive  Geography,  which 
aims  at  helping  learners  to  realize  the  aspects  of  nature;  Com- 
mercial Geography,  which  concerns  itself  with  manufactures 
and  cities,  with  population  and  productions;  and  Physical 
Geography  which  seeks  for  the  truths  and  general  laws  under- 
lying these  mundane  phenomena.  The  first  addresses  itself  to 
the  imagination,  and  is  the  most  interesting  and  attractive. 
The  second  appeals  to  the  memory,  and  is  the  most  serviceable 
in  the  intercourse  of  life.  The  third  alone  enlists  the  aid  of 
the  understanding,  and  is  for  this  reason  the  most  valuable  as  a 
part  of  disciplinal  education, — the  only  branch  of  the  subject 


Recapitulation.  335 


in  fact  which  deserves  to  rank  as  science.  We  are  to  keep 
these  three  forms  of  geographical  teaching  separately  in  view 
and  to  take  care  that  each  receives  the  consideration  which  is 
due  to  it  and  no  more. 

The  recognition  of  this  distinction  will  not  be  without  its 
value  in  connection  with  the  whole  class  of  information  of 
which  Geography  may  serve  as  a  type.  I  hope  hereafter  to  say 
something  more  as  to  the  place  which  physical  and  inductive 
science  should  hold  in  a  high  or  complete  course  of  instruction. 
Here,  however,  I  must  be  content  to  have  left  on  your  mind  the 
impression  that  even  in  the  lower  department  of  school  life  the 
claims  of  such  knowledge  ought  to  be  distinctly  recognized,  and 
that  they  are  best  recognized  by  planning  out  in  regular  series 
conversational  and  pictorial  lessons  on  useful  and  interesting 
facts,  and  on  what  the  Germans  call  Natur-Kunde,  but  what 
we  may  more  fully  describe  as  the  phenomena  of  common  life, 
observed  and  taught  in  a  scientific  way. 


336  History. 


XIII.   HISTORY. 

IT  is  clear  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which  a  large  part  of  the  His- 
Purpose  of  ^iar^  taught  in  schools  belongs  to  the  region  which 
historical  we  have  designated  Fact-lore;  because  it  is  learned 
mainly  as  information  interesting  and  serviceable 
in  se.  But  the  proportion  of  lessons  in  History  which  have  a  dis- 
ciplinal,  moral,  and  reflex  value  as  part  of  education  is  some- 
what larger  than  in  Geography.  We  shall  all  be  agreed  that 
history  is  not  a  mere  narration  of  facts  in  their  chronological 
order;  but  that  to  know  it  is  to  know  events  in  their  true  causes 
and  connection,  to  have  our  judgment  exercised  about  the  right 
and  wrong  of  human  actions  as  well  as  the  sequence  of  events, 
and  to  recognize  some  principles  underlying  the  mere  facts. 

"  History,"  says  Fuller,  "maketh  a  young  man  to  be  old 
without  either  wrinkles  or  gray  hair,  privileging  him  with  the 
experience  of  age  without  either  the  infirmities  or  the  incon- 
veniences thereof."  But  the  history  that  will  correspond  to  this 
description  must  be  something  which  far  transcends  in  its  scope 
the  scanty  record  of  royal  alliances,  of  wars,  and  of  dynastic 
struggles,  which  constitute  the  staple  of  school  text-books.  So 
unsatisfactory  is  the  intellectual  result  of  much  of  the  labor 
spent  on  teaching  history  to  children,  that  many  authorities  of 
great  weight  advocate  the  omission  of  the  subject  from  the 
course  of  school  instruction  altogether.  Herbert  Spencer  says, 
"  That  kind  of  information  which  hi  oar  schools  usurps  the 
name  of  History — the  mere  tissue  of  names  and  dates  and  dead 
unmeaning  events — has  a  conventional  value  only:  it  has  not 
the  remotest  bearing  on  any  of  our  actions,  and  is  of  use  only 
for  the  avoidance  of  those  unpleasant  criticisms  which  current 


Historical  Text-books.  337 

opinion  passes  on  its  absence."  And  he  proceeds  to  show  that 
the  fundamental  objection  to  such  masses  of  facts  as  children 
are  often  required  to  learn  is  that  they  are  undigested  and  un- 
organizable,  that  there  is  no  unity  about  them,  and  therefore  no 
scientific  value  in  them.  Now  for  my  part,  I  do  not  think  this 
a  reason  for  omitting  the  study  of  History  from  a  school-course, 
but  simply  for  inquiring  how  the  facts  can  be  so  taught  as  to 
serve  a  real  educational  purpose. 

Nothing  is  easier  than  to  begin  by  denouncing  the  school- 
books.     No  doubt  they  are  all  more  or  less  unsat- 

Text-books, 
isfactory.     Yet  it  is  difficult  to  know  how  if  they 

honestly  fulfil  their  intended  purpose  they  could  be  otherwise. 
They  must,  of  course,  be  crammed  with  facts;  and  as  style 
must  always  be  more  or  less  sacrificed  to  the  desire  for  exces- 
sive condensation,  they  are  seldom  very  readable  or  interesting. 
Moreover,  since  the  writer  of  a  school-book  naturally  strives  to 
narrate  as  large  a  number  of  authentic  facts  as  his  space  will 
contain,  it  is  often  unavoidable  that  important  and  unimportant 
facts  will  be  recorded  with  the  same  amount  of  elaboration,  and 
that  thus,  much  which  is  of  little  value  will  be  minutely  set 
forth.  The  more  systematic  text-books  also  attempt  a  classifi- 
cation of  the  main  facts  of  each  reign,  under  such  heads  as 
"birth  and  parentage  of  the  sovereign,  eminent  men,  wars," 
etc.  Now,  although  this  looks  methodical,  and  is,  indeed,  very 
helpful  to  the  utility  of  the  book  considered  as  a  work  of  refer- 
ence, it  destroys  its  value  as  a  book  to  be  read.  Nobody  acquires 
a  knowledge  of  historical  facts  in  this  formal  way.  To  begin 
with  classification  of  this  kind,  is  to  begin  at  the  wrong  end. 
It  is  only  after  a  general  interest  has  been  awakened  in  the  story 
of  the  reign,  and  after  some  of  the  important  facts  have  laid 
hold  upon  the  mind,  that  the  use  for  such  classification  arises, 
or  the  necessity  of  it  is  felt. 

In  spite,  however,  of  these  drawbacks,  the  use  of  text-books 
is  a  necessity,  if  you  would  avoid  vagueness  and  teach  history 
methodically.     Let  the  book,  however,  be  treated  as  supple- 
mentary and  wholly  subordinate  to  oral  lessons,  and  be  used  for 
22 


338  History. 

reference  and  home  study  mainly,  and  then  it  falls  into  its 
Books  useful,   proper  place.     But  if  it  be  used  in  class  at  all  let 

but  to  be         jt  be  read  aloud,  explained,  amplified,  commented 
subordinate 

to  oral  on,  and  made  vividly  interesting,  before  you  re- 

quire any  of  it  to  be  learned  as  a  lesson.  Then 
by  way  of  giving  concentration  and  definiteness  to  what  you 
have  taught,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  expect  the  bare  facts  as 
given  in  your  school  manual  to  be  got  up,  copied  out  and  re- 
membered, though  not  of  course  to  be  learned  by  heart  in  the 
precise  words  of  the  book.  ' 

These  two  objects  (1)  To  make  history  stimulating  to  the 
Two  dis-  imagination,  and  suggestive  to  the  thought  of  the 
tinctaims.  scholar,  and  (2)  To  furnish  a  good  basis  of  ac- 
curate and  well-arranged  facts  for  future  use  and  generalization, 
will  be  before  you.  To  care  about  the  first  object  exclusively 
is  to  incur  the  risk  of  a  relapse  into  slovenly  teaching,  and  vague 
picturesque  impressions.  To  be  satisfied  with  the  second  only 
is  to  incur  the  yet  greater  risk  of  turning  the  most  interesting 
and  humanizing  of  all  studies  into  a  dull  and  joyless  mnemonic, 
and  so  of  giving  your  pupil  a  distaste  for  History  which  will 
last  for  life. 

Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  to  ask  how  it  is  that  so  many  of 
The  Bible  us  ^ave  a  mucn  clearer  knowledge  of  the  history 
a  model  of  of  the  Jews,  than  of  our  own  annals?  Is  it  not  be- 
cause the  Bible  is  in  one  respect  the  model  of  all 
history?  Look  at  it  without  reference  to  its  higher  claims, 
simply  as  a  piece  of  narrative.  Consider  how  it  is  that  it  con- 
veys to  its  readers  so  clear  and  full  a  knowledge  of  Jewish  his- 
tory during  many  centuries.  There  is,  for  example,  a  period 
of  about  one  thousand  years,  from  Abraham  to  Rehoboam,  and 
how  is  the  history  of  the  time  told?  We  have  first  the  story 
of  the  patriarch's  personal  career.  We  are  led  to  understand 
his  character  and  his  motives;  we  see  him  as  the  centre  of  a 
scene  in  which  pastoral  life  is  attractively  portrayed,  and  which 
affords  us  glimpses  of  the  patriarchal  government,  of  life  and 
manners,  and  of  the  social  and^domestic  conditions  of  the  time. 


The  JBible,  a  Model  History.  339 

In  like  manner  we  see  Isaac  and  Jacob  with  their  families  and 
their  environments;  and  then  the  narrative,  disdaining  to  go  into 
details  about  lesser  matters,  expands  into  a  copious  biography 
of  Joseph,  whose  personal  history  and  fortunes  make  us  incident- 
ally acquainted  with  the  state  of  Egypt,  its  government,  its 
political  economy,  and  many  facts  of  great  interest,  which,  had 
they  been  tabulated  in  a  book  of  outlines,  we  should  not  have 
cared  to  learn.  The  history  then  passes  over  a  long  uneventful 
period  of  nearly  400  years  with  scarcely  a  sentence,  and  again  be- 
comes full  and  graphic  about  the  Exodus  and  the  journey  in  the 
wilderness,  investing  even  the  details  of  legislation  with  a  special 
interest  by  connecting  them  with  the  person,  the  character,  and 
the  private  life  of  the  lawgiver,  Moses.  And  thus  the  story  is 
continued,  sometimes  passing  over  a  long  interval  of  inaction 
or  obscurity  with  a  few  words  of  general  description,  or  a  list 
of  names;  but  fastening  here  and  there  on  the  name  of  Joshua, 
of  Gideon,  of  Samuel,  of  Saul,  or  of  David,  and  narrating  the 
history  of  the  times  in  connection  with  the  circumstances  of  his 
life.  The  current  of  human  events,  as  it  is  described  in  the 
sacred  writings,  is  not  like  that  stream  of  uniform  breadth 
and  depth  which  text-books  seem  to  describe,  and  which  we  see 
often  depicted  in  chronological  charts.  It  rather  resembles  a 
picturesque  river,  diversified  in  its  aspect  as  it  glides  along;  now 
feeble  and  parrow,  now  broad  and  swelling;  hemmed  in  at  one 
part  of  its  course  by  overhanging  rocks,  and  at  another  spread- 
ing out  into  a  vast  lake;  becoming  again  contracted,  or  like  the 
Arcadian  river  of  Alpheus  disappearing  altogether  from  view, 
then  reappearing,  and  yet  flowing  ceaselessly;  now  past  a  fair 
city  or  a  noble  castle,  and  anon  through  a  vast  region  which  is 
flat  and  comparatively  barren;  continuous  but  irregular;  pos- 
sessing unity  but  not  uniformity;  inviting  the  traveller  to  glide 
rapidly  along  at  one  time,  and  to  linger  long  and  tenderly  over 
some  memorial  of  vanished  greatness  at  another. 

Who  does  not  see  that  such  a  narrative  precisely  corresponds 
to  the  real  picture  of  a  nation's  history?  In  the  life  of  a  peo- 
ple there  are  always  great  epochs  of  change  and  activity  occur- 


340  History. 

ring  at  irregular  intervals,  and  so  marked  and  characteristic, 
Because  it  that  if  they  be  once  understood,  all  the  lesser  de- 
atte°n«ona^f  tails  and  tue  intermediate  events  become  intelli- 
fixed  points,  gible  through  their  means.  Moreover,  the  Scrip- 
tural story  of  the  people  of  Israel  curiously  resembles  the  actual 
knowledge  which  even  the  most  accomplished  historical  scholar 
possesses.  That  it  is  adapted  to  the  needs  and  conditions  of  the 
human  understanding  will  be  evident  to  any  one  who  will  take 
the  trouble  to  recall  his  own  experience,  and  will  remember 
how  he  has  secured  one  after  another  certain  fixed  points  of 
interest,  has  grouped  round  them,  little  by  little,  the  facts  which 
he  has  subsequently  acquired,  filled  up  the  intervals  of  time 
between  them  by  slow  degrees,  but  to  the  last  has  continued  to 
retain  his  hold  on  these  fixed  points,  and  to  refer  every  new  ac- 
quisition to  some  one  or  other  of  them. 

I  do  not  say  that  it  is  possible  or  even  desirable  that  school- 
books  on  English  History  should  be  made  to  conform  to  the 
Bible  type  in  this  respect.  It  is  not  safe  to  leave  to  the  compil- 
ers of  such  books  the  task  of  determining  what  part  of  our  an- 
nals shall  be  overlooked,  and  it  is  quite  necessary  that  teachers 
should  themselves  exercise  some  discretion  in  this  matter, 
selecting  and  adapting  their  historical  lessons  according  to  the 
age  and  capacity  of  the  children,  and  to  the  probable  duration 
of  their  stay  at  school.  But  if  it  be,  indeed,  certain  that  careful 
readers  of  the  Bible  obtain  a  truer  insight  into  the  character  and 
polity,  the  manners,  progress,  and  national  life  of  a  people  than 
is  to  be  secured,  with  the  same  degree  of  attention,  from  a 
modern  compendium  of  English  history,  the  fact  is  certainly  a 
significant  one,  and  will  be  found  to  suggest  some  important 
practical  inferences. 

Of  these  the  most  obvious  is,  that  it  is  better  to  master  the 
The  great  great  and  eventful  periods  than  to  go  on  continu- 
i^lrnedfn1  ously  in  the  way  suggested  by  the  form  of  a  text- 
detail  first.  book.  We  said  in  Geography  that  there  was  abso- 
lutely no  sequence  for  mere  topographical  facts;  that  no  one 
such  fact  had  any  real  priority  over  another  except  in  so  far  as 


The  First  Lessons.  341 

accident  or  association  rendered  it  useful  to  the  learner.  Hence 
it  was  expedient  for  the  teacher  to  emancipate  himself  complete- 
ly from  the  text-books,  and  to  teach  the  mere  facts  of  political 
Geography  in  any  order  he  liked.  But  in  history  there  is  of 
course  a  natural  order,  that  of  chronological  sequence;  and  if 
life  were  long  enough,  and  if  all  events  and  periods  were  equally 
worth  studying,  this  would  be  the  true  order  of  teaching.  But 
as  a  matter  of  fact  the  order  of  the  relative  significance  and 
value  of  events  is  of  far  more  importance  than  their  chronologi 
cal  order,  and  does  not  in  any  way  correspond  to  it. 

How  then  should  we  begin  to  teach  English  History?  Not 
certainly  by  plunging  at  once  into  the  story  of  The  first 
Julius  Caesar  and  the  Druids;  nor  by  giving  a  lessons- 
number  of  dates  to  be  learned,  to  form  a  framework  for  pictures 
we  mean  to  paint.  I  should  first  give  a  short  series  of  lessons 
-either  orally,  or  from  a  well-written  reading  book  if  I  could  find 
one,  with  a  view  to  make  some  simple  and  fundamental  histori- 
cal ideas  intelligible— a  State,  a  tuition,  a  dynasty,  a  monarch,  a 
parliament,  legislation,  the  administration  of  justice,  taxes,  civil 
and  foreign  war.  Scholars  would  thus  see  what  sort  of  matter 
History  had  to  do  with,  and  would  be  prepared  to  enter  on  the 
study  with  more  interest.  Then  a  general  notion  should  be 
given  of  the  number  of  centuries  over  which  our  History  ex- 
tends. A  general  outline  of  the  period  of  time  to  be  covered 
is  necessary  in  order  that  each  fact  as  it  is  known  may  be  local- 
ized and  referred  to  its  due  position  among  other  facts.  Thus 
a  sort  of  Time-map  divided  into  19  centuries  is  roughly  con- 
structed, on  the  same  principle  as  that  which  would  lead  the 
teacher  to  lay  clown  the  meridian  lines  of  a  geographical  map 
before  he  drew  it  and  filled  in  all  its  parts.  But  as  soon  as  this 
is  done  the  task  of  selection  begins.  He  is  by  no  means  bound 
to  follow  blindly  the  course  prescribed  by  the  text-book.  On 
the  contrary,  it  will  be  far  better  to  fix  upon  the  most  character- 
istic periods,  to  cause  them  to  be  studied  with  fulness  and  exact- 
ness, and  to  reserve  the  chronicle  of  the  less  notable  reigns  until 
afterwards.  The  times  of  Egbert,  of  the  Conqueror,  of  Eliza- 


342  History. 

beth,  of  the  Protectorate,  of  Anne,  and  of  George  III.,  are 
turning-points  in  our  history.  The  person  who  understands 
these  well  is,  as  far  as  history  is  concerned,  a  well-informed 
man,  even  though  he  is  unable  to  repeat  in  due  order  the  list  of 
sovereigns,  and  to  tell  their  relationship  to  each  other.  For  all 
the  higher  purposes  contemplated  in  the  study,  a  thorough 
acquaintance  with  the  state  of  England  in  one  or  two  of  the 
most  eventful  periods  is  of  far  more  value  than  a  superficial 
knowledge  of  the  entire  history.  The  latter  may  be  forgotten. 
There  is  no  germinating  power  in  it;  it  will  neither  grow  when 
the  pupil  carries  it  with  him  into  the  world  of  books,  and  of 
news,  and  of  conversation;  nor  furnish  material  for  reflection 
in  solitary  hours.  But  the  former  serves  as  a  nucleus  for  future 
acquirement.  A  learner  who  has  been  led  to  pay  special  atten- 
tion to  one  period,  and  to  master  all  its  differentia,  carries  away 
with  him  from  school  not  only  a  fund  of  knowledge  which  will 
hold  together  and  retain  its  place  in  the  mind,  but  also  right 
notions  of  what  historical  investigation  really  is,  and  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  annals  of  a  period  should  hereafter  be 
studied.  In  short,  it  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  a  pupil 
should  take  with  him  into  the  world  all  the  facts  of  a  school- 
history,  but  it  is  necessary  that  he  should  be  provided  with  a 
taste  for  historical  reading,  and  with  both  the  power  and  the 
disposition  to  study  the  subject  systematically  for  himself. 
And  this  object  is  far  more  likely  to  be  obtained  by  judiciously 
selecting  and  dwelling  on  the  prominent  epochs  than  by  the 
ordinary  routine  method. 
A  good  deal  is  often  said  as  to  the  value  of  chronology,  which 

some  have  called  one  of  the  eyes  of  History.    Mr. 

Fearon  says  dates  are  to  History  what  the  multipli- 
cation table  is  to  Arithmetic.  I  am  not  quite  prepared  to  admit 
the  analogy  in  this  case.  The  multiplication  table  has  two  charac- 
teristics: It  is  constantly  wanted  in  every  sum  we  work ;  and  every 
fact  in  it  is  of  equal  value.  That  7  nines  are  63  is  just  as  liable 
to  be  wanted  in  Arithmetic  as  the  fact  that  2  sixes  are  12.  But  of 
dates  we  may  safely  say  that  there  are  many  degrees  of  useful- 


Practical  Use  of  this  Principle.  343 

ness  in  them,  some  being  very  valuable  and  others  very  worth- 
less. And  if  the  principle  I  have  tried  to  lay  down  is  a  true 
one  in  regard  to  the  study  of  periods  of  history,  that  principle 
will  lead  us  to  discriminate  between  the  dates  which  we  may 
wisely  take  some  trouble  to  retain  as  fixed  points  in  the 
memory,  and  those  dates  which  none  but  a  pedant  would  value, 
and  which  even  a  well-instructed  man  would  not  care  to  remem- 
ber. I  may  confess  to  you — though  with  real  deference  to  the 
judgment  of  many  who  think  differently — that  I  do  not  see 
much  use  in  knowing  the  date  of  an  event,  without  knowing 
something  about  the  event  itself.  If  we  learn  dates  as  and  when 
we  study  the  events,  the  two  together  have  a  meaning  and  a 
value;  but  the  date  itself  and  apart  is  of  little  worth.  If  we 
examine  our  own  mental  history  a  little  we  shall  find  that  such 
chronology  as  we  thoroughly  know  and  has  become  part  of  our 
permanent  possessions  connects  itself  with  prominent  and  inter- 
esting events,  and  has  been  added  to  piecemeal  as  our  knowledge 
of  history  increases.  We  study  a  fact,  become  sensible  of  its 
importance,  and  then  we  remember  the  date. 

For  example,  in  English  History  the  dates  of  Julius  Caesar, 
the  first  Christian  mission,  Alfred,  the  Conquest,    Dates  to  be 
John  and  Magna  Charta,  Edward  III.  and  Chau-   iea£?ed  as 
cer,  Henry  VIII.  and  the  Reformation,  Elizabeth  known.notin- 
and  the  Armada,  the  execution  of  Charles  I.,  the   dePendentl7- 
Restoration,  the  Revolution  of  1688,  the  great  year  of  Minden 
and  Quebec,   the  loss  of  America,   the  French  Revolution, 
Waterloo,  are  the  fixed  centres  round  which  a  large  part  of  our 
annals  may  be  said  to  revolve. 

I  know  an  admirable  teacher  of  History  who  relies  most  on 
good  oral  lessons  for  teaching  this  subject;   but   practical 
who  has  adopted  the  plan  of  printing  on  a  card,    use  of  this 
and  placing  in  the  hands  of  every  boy,  a  list  con-  pru 
taining  in  bold  type  about  twenty  of  these  dates.     There  is 
thus  a  sort  of  carte  du  pays  under  the  eye  of  the  scholar, 
and  as  each  fact  is  named,  it  is  identified  with  one  of  the 
dates.     Then  for  an  advanced  class,  there  is  a  larger  card, 


344  History. 

which  contains  some  50  dates  in  all,  the  original  20  being  in 
somewhat  larger  type,  and  the  minor  or  new  dates  smaller.  In 
the  highest  class  a  third  card  is  used  with  about  a  hundred 
dates,  or  50  in  addition  to  those  already  known;  the  whole 
being  printed  in  three  kinds  of  type  to  mark  the  different  de- 
grees of  importance  in  the  events.  Thus  certain  fixed  land- 
marks are  put  before  the  scholars.  As  each  event  is  discussed 
and  learned,  they  associate  the  date  with  it;  and  as  they  read 
more  of  history,  they  establish  fresh  halting-places,  put  each 
new  fact  into  its  proper  interval,  and  so  these  intervals  become 
smaller  and  smaller.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  rational  way 
of  learning  dates,  as  adjuncts  to  our  historical  knowledge,  as 
helps  in  systematizing  and  arranging  facts  which  we  already 
know,  not  as  facts  or  pieces  of  knowledge  of  any  value  in 
themselves. 

Observe  to  what  absurd  devices  we  are  led  when  we  accept 
Mnemonic  chronology  as  a  thing  to  be  learned  per  se.  One 
systems  of  teacher  maps  out  the  ceiling  of  a  room,  and  asso- 
' ogy>  ciates  dates  with  particular  portions  of  a  diagram, 
the  form  of  which  is  supposed  to  be  printed  on  the  learner's 
brain.  Another  invents  a  memoria  technica,  in  which  certain 
letters  stand  for  figures.  Thus  you  have  the  first  syllable  of  a 
sovereign's  name,  and  then  a  syllable  made  up  of  letters  repre- 
senting the  date  of  his  accession.  And  in  some  ladies'  schools 
I  have  met  with  systems  of  metrical  chronology,  short  rhymed 
couplets  so  formed  that  the  initial  letters  either  of  the  alternate 
words  or  of  the  nouns  shall  represent  the  years  in  which  the 
facts  occurred,  e.g. 

"  The  Saxon  is  doomed,  a  Duke  England  obtains 
And  the  second  William  ascendancy  gains, 
Tyrrel's  arrow  attacks  and  the  Sage  acquires  sway, 
Then  Adela's  offspring  the  men  long  obey." 

In  this  doggerel  the  initial  consonants  hi  each  line  give  respec- 
tively the  dates  1066,  1087,  1100,  and  1135.  You  will  observe 
the  extreme  difficulty  which  hampers  the  poet  in  the  construe- 


Biography,  345 


tion  of  lines  like  these;  and  that  after  all  the  result  is  not  only 
almost  unintelligible,  but  even  the  names  of  the  two  monarchs 
Henry  and  Stephen  referred  to  in  the  latter  lines  are  not  given. 
It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  examples  of  these  systems  of 
artificial  memory,  but  to  me  they  all  seem  open  to  one  fatal  ob- 
jection. We  are  establishing  with  the  names  of  historical  per- 
sonages a  number  of  associations,  some  absurd,  some  unmean- 
ing and  all  false,  and  burdening  the  memory  of  children  with 
something  in  itself  confessedly  useless,  for  the  sake  of  some- 
thing useful  supposed  to  be  embodied  in  it.  We  assume  that 
the  mechanical  contrivance  will  keep  the  date  in  the  mind,  and 
that  afterwards  the  date  will  remain  fixed,  and  the  mere  me- 
chanism drop  out  of  sight  altogether.  Now  experience  shows 
that  the  opposite  result  happens.  Persons  who  have  been 
taught  on  these  mnemonic  systems  have  often  told  me  in  later 
life  that  they  have  remembered  the  doggerel  verses,  or  the  qu^er 
syllables,  but  have  forgotten  the  key.  So  the  end  has  not  been 
attained  after  all.  On  the  whole  therefore  I  have  little  faith  in 
any  device  for  remembering  dates,  except  becoming  interested 
in  the  events  to  which  the  dates  relate. 

An  obvious  inference  from  the  view  of  historical  study  here 
presented  is,  that  Biography  is  too  much  neglected, 
and  its  value  as  an  adjunct  to  history  too  little  re- 
garded among  schoolmasters.  Yet  every  one  knows  how  much 
more  attractive  is  the  life  of  a  person  than  the  history  of  mere 
events.  There  is  a  sympathy  and  a  human  interest  awakened, 
when  the  career  of  a  man  is  discussed,  which  can  never  be  ex- 
cited in  any  other  way.  The  great  charm  of  the  Bible  history, 
as  we  have  seen,  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  series  of  biographies, 
held  together  by  a  thread  of  narrative,  it  is  true,  but  deriving 
its  main  interest  from  the  circumstance  that  we  see  human 
fortunes  in  progress,  human  passions  at  work,  and  real  human 
characters,  whom  we  can  love,  or  criticise,  or  admire.  Our 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  history  is  primarily  a  knowledge  of 
Moses,  or  David,  or  Paul,  and  only  incidentally  of  the  political 
and  social  condition  of  the  people  among  whom  they  lived. 


346  History. 

Yet,  though  incidental  only,  this  knowledge  is  very  real,  and 
is  none  the  less  valuable  because  it  is  held  in  the  mind  by  its 
association  with  what  we  know  of  the  chief  personages,  and 
their  character  and  career.  A  good  teacher  will  therefore  do 
well  occasionally,  when  his  scholars  are  reading  the  history 
of  a  given  period,  to  interrupt  the  regular  course,  and  to  select 
some  representative  man  of  the  epoch,  gather  together  from  all 
sources  particulars  respecting  him,  and  give  two  or  three  special 
lessons  on  his  life.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  life  of 
William  of  Wykeham  is  taken  to  illustrate  the  reign  of  Edward 
III.  Let  the  pupils  be  led  by  a  brief  sketch  to  take  an  in- 
terest in  the  man,  to  follow  his  fortunes,  to  estimate  his  charac- 
ter. Let  them  see  pictures  of  the  buildings  which  he  erected, 
be  reminded  of  Winchester,  of  Windsor,  of  New  College,  Ox- 
ford, and  of  Saint  Cross,  and  so  get  a  glimpse  of  the  educa- 
tional machinery,  the  architecture,  and  the  social  habits  of  the 
period.  Let  them  be  directed  to  books  in  the  library,  in  which 
anecdotes  and  illustrative  matter  may  be  found.  Let  them  in- 
vestigate the  public  and  political  questions  with  which  his  life 
was  associated,  and  then  be  desired  to  prepare  a  sketch  as  full 
as  possible,  and  in  a  narrative  form,  embodying  all  they  have 
learned  about  Wykeham. 

The  result  of  such  an  exercise  will  be  found  to  justify  the  in- 
terruption of  the  ordinary  historical  lessons  for  one  or  two 
weeks.  A  pupil  who,  in  this  way,  has  been  directed  succes- 
sively to  the  biography  of  Alfred,  of  A'Becket,  of  Chaucer,  of 
the  Earl  of  Warwick,  of  Cecil,  of  Bacon,  of  Cromwell,  and  of 
Pitt  cannot  fail  to  have  an  extensive  acquaintance  with  the  cur- 
rent history  of  the  times  in  which  these  men  lived;  while  the 
form  in  which  that  knowledge  is  acquired  will  be  found  better 
adapted  than  any  other  to  retain  a  permanent  hold  on  his  mind. 
In  the  selection  of  the  typical  man  of  each  age,  the  teacher  will 
be  guided,  partly  by  his  own  tastes,  and  partly  by  the  materials 
at  his  command  and  the  books  to  which  he  has  access.  It  is 
of  more  importance  that  he  should  choose  some  one  man  in 
whom  he  is  himself  interested,  and  whose  biography  he  has 


Biographical  Lessons.  347 

the  means  of  making  copious  and  lifelike  in  his  lessons,  than 
that  he  should  be  guided  by  any  selection  which  another  could 
make  for  him. 

The  materials  for  such  biographical  lessons  are  very  abund- 
ant in  our  language,  and  may  be  found  with  little  Examples 
trouble.  Our  language  is  rich  in  admirable  mono-  of  studies  in 
graphs,  such  as  Bacon's  Henry  VII.,  Lucy  Hutch-  10sraPhy- 
inson's  Memoir  of  her  Husband,  Johnson's  Sir  Francis  Drake, 
Earl  Russell's  Life  of  his  ancestor  Lord  Russell,  Fox's  James 
II.,  Carlyle's  Cromwell,  Southey's  Nelson,  John  Forster's  Five 
Members,  Leslie  Stephen's,  or  Mrs.  Oliphant's  Sketches  of  the 
18th  Century,  Trevelyan's  Life  of  Macaulay.  In  Walton's  ex- 
quisite book  of  Lives,  in  Fuller's  Worthies,  in  Macaulay's 
Biographies,  in  Lord  Brougham's  Statesmen  of  the  Time  of 
George  III.,  in  Miss  Strickland's  Lives  of  the  Queens,  and  in 
Mignet's  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  also,  abundant  material  for 
pleasing  and  graphic  pictures  of  life  and  manners  may  be 
found.  Very  often,  too,  a  diligent  teacher  will  find  that  by 
piecing  together  the  facts  stated  in  two  or  three  different  books 
about  some  one  person,  he  will  be  able,  without  difficulty,  to 
prepare  a  short  lecture  or  oral  lesson,  the  preparation  and  ar- 
rangement of  which  will  be  as  useful  to  himself  as  it  will 
prove  beneficial  to  his  pupils.  If  this  practice  be  occasionally 
adopted,  it  will  surprise  him  to  find  how  the  facts  relating  to 
the  history  of  an  age  will  cluster  and  organize  themselves 
round  a  great  man's  name,  and  how  systematic  the  knowledge 
of  history  will  thus  become.  I  have  already  referred  to  the 
use  of  a  library  for  these  purposes,  and  to  the  way  in  which 
after  the  teacher  has  given  a  brief  sketch  of  the  life  he  may  set 
his  pupils  to  fill  up  that  sketch  in  writing,  with  all  the  particu- 
lars they  can  glean  frotn  different  sources,  until  they  have,  in 
fact,  partly  produced  the  biography  themselves.  He  will  after- 
wards require  the  information  thus  given  to  be  reproduced  by 
the  class  in  a  regular  form,  with  the  facts  arranged  chrono- 
logically, or  tabulated  under  various  heads,  besides  an  estimate 
of  the  character  of  the  person  whose  life  has  been  selected. 


348  History. 

A  very  interesting  series  of  lessons  might  be  given  on  great 
Lessons  on  books,  their  influence  on  History,  and  their  value 
great  writ-  (1)  as  indicative  of  the  thought  and  intellectual 
movement  of  the  age  which  produced  them,  and 
(2)  as  helping  to  shape  the  thought  or  the  policy  of  the  age 
which  succeeded:  e.g. 


Bede. 

Spenser. 

Dryden. 

Addison. 

Langland. 

Shakespeare. 

Hume. 

Burke. 

Chaucer. 

Bacon. 

Adam  Smith. 

Fox. 

Sir  P.  Sidney. 

Milton. 

Gibbon. 

DeFoe. 

Raleigh. 

Algernon  Sidney. 

Swift. 

Southey. 

Hooker. 

Locke. 

Johnson. 

Brougham. 

There  is  not  one  of  these  whose  life,  with  a  notice  of  his  most 
important  books,  would  not  throw  much  light  on  the  political 
history  and  the  social  life  of  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  So  a 
series  of  lessons  on  great  inventors,  as 

Roger  Bacon,          Newton,          Stephenson,          Boyle,          Watt, 

would  serve  a  like  purpose. 

As  another  means  of  giving  life  and  reality  to  lessons  on  this 
Historical  subject,  occasional  Historical  Readings  may  de- 
readings,  serve  a  prominent  place.  The  teacher  may  advan- 
tageously assemble  his  class  once  a  week  or  fortnight,  and  give 
to  them  a  half-hour's  reading  from  some  book  which  illustrates 
the  period  to  which  the  recent  historical  lessons  refer.  Such 
readings  should  generally  be  anecdotal  and  dramatic  in  their 
character,  as  it  is  more  necessary  that  they  should  deepen  and 
intensify  the  impression  of  some  one  characteristic  incident  of 
the  time  than  merely  go  over  the  ground  which  has  been  cov- 
ered by  the  historical  lessons.  If  a  teacher  in  his  own  private 
reading  keeps  his  eyes  open  for  passages  such  as  will  serve  this 
purpose;  if  he  will  systematically  mark  them,  or  make  a 
memorandum  of  the  places  in  which  they  occur,  it  will  sur- 
prise him  to  find  how  they  will  multiply  upon  him.  Not  only 
in  books  ostensibly  written  as  histories,  but  in  many  others 


Historical  Headings.  349 

there  will  often  oecur  a  striking  and  effective  passage,  which 
will,  if  well  read,  be  sure  to  excite  interest. 

It  would  be  an  endless  task  to  point  out  the  passages  in  Pal- 
grave,  Hume,  Macaulay,  Froude,  Clarendon,  Car-  j^^^g 
lyle,  Freeman,  Miss  Martineau,  Guizot,  or  Mr.  of  historical 
Knight,  which  are  characterized  by  special  inter- 
est or  pictorial  beauty,  and  which,  if  read  to  a  class  that  had 
been  recently  engaged  in  accumulating  the  dry  details  of  a 
given  period,  would  be  sure  to  help  the  imagination,  and  stimu- 
late the  intellectual  activity  and  strengthen  the  memory  of  the 
.  pupils.  A  teacher's  own  taste  will  generally  be  a  safer  guide 
in  the  adaptation  of  his  readings  to  his  ordinary  teaching  than 
any  formal  list  which  could  be  set  down  here.  But  in  making 
his  selection  he  need  on  no  account  confine  himself  to  grave 
books  of  history;  one  of  the  Paston  Letters,  a  naif  anecdote 
from  Froissart,  a  gossiping  letter  of  Horace  Walpole,  a  paper 
from  the  Spectator,  an  extract  from  Evelyn's  Diary,  a  chapter 
of  De  Foe's  History  of  the  Plague,  or  even  a  passage  from  one 
of  honest  Pepys'  grotesque  confessions,  will,  if  wisely  chosen, 
and  read  at  the  right  time,  be  found  to  play  an  important  part 
in  fastening  the  record  of  some  great  event  on  the  mind.  Nor 
should  the  stores  of  our  poetical  and  dramatic  literature  be 
overlooked.  What  a  freshness  and  life  will  be  given  to  the 
dry  bones  of  an  ordinary  narrative  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  if 
the  teacher  treats  the  learners  at  the  end  of  their  task  with  two 
or  three  well-selected  scenes  from  Shakespeare's  Henry  IV.  or 
VI.  Who  would  not  understand  the  whole  life,  costume,  oc- 
cupation, and  morale  of  Edward  III.'s  contemporaries  all  the 
better  for  hearing  Chaucer's  inimitable  description  of  some  of 
the  Canterbury  Pilgrims,  or  even  a  page  of  Sir  John  Mande- 
ville's  quaint  book  of  Travels?  I  cannot  expect  a  mere  routine 
teacher  to  take  all  the  trouble  I  am  recommending,  but  to  all 
who  desire  to  give  to  English  history  that  place  in  their  pupils' 
affection  and  interest  which  it  deserves,  I  would  say,  Make 
your  own  miscellaneous  reading  tell  upon  your  school  lessons. 
This  is  a  good  rule  in  relation  to  all  subjects.  Attention  to  it 


350  History. 

serves  to  widen  the  range  of  illustration  at  command,  and  to 
impart  vivacity  and  force  to  all  the  teaching  of  a  school.  But 
in  history  the  rule  is  especially  applicable.  Let  a  teacher  read 
one  or  two  of  Wordsworth's  sonnets  about  the  introduction  of 
Christianity  into  England  after  his  class  has  learned  the  story 
of  Augustine's  mission;  or  Macaulay's  poem  on  the  Spanish 
Armada,  when  that  subject  has  been  studied;  or  a  pungent 
passage  from  Dryden's  Absalom  and  Achitophel,  or  Milton's 
sonnet  on  Cromwell,  or  a  ballad  from  Percy's  Reliques,  and  the 
advantage  of  the  practice  will  soon  become  apparent  to  him. 
Within  the  range  of  such  reading  also  may  fairly  be  included 
good  extracts  from  Ivanhoe  or  Waverley,  from  the  Last  of  the 
Barons,  from  Westward  Ho,  or  Henry  Esmond.  It  may  be 
said,  perhaps,  that  all  this  is  not  history;  that  children  come  to 
school  to  learn  facts,  not  fictions,  and  that  there  is  danger  of 
relaxing  the  bonds  of  intellectual  discipline  by  introducing  into 
the  school-room  material  of  so  unscholastic  a  character  as  a 
play  of  Shakespeare,  or  a  novel  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  But  to 
this  it  may  be  easily  replied  that  my  recommendation  only  ex- 
tends to  the  contrivances  by  which  school-book  work  of  the 
ordinary  kind  is  to  be  supplemented,  not  to  any  device  for 
superseding  it.  We  are  not  to  use  the  imagination  as  an  alter- 
native, but  as  a  help  to  the  memory. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  one  sense  in  which  poetry  embodies 
The  poetry  as  much  historical  truth  as  history  itself.  We 
of  history.  ought  to  know,  not  only  what  can  actually  be 
verified  as  fact  but  what  has  been  believed  to  be  fact.  That 
Romulus  and  Remus  were  suckled  by  a  wolf,  that  Agamem- 
non sailed  against  Troy,  that  Numa  was  instructed  in  the 
art  of  kingship  by  the  divine  Egeria,  that  Arthur  gathered 
a  goodly  fellowship  of  famous  knights  at  the  Round  Table 
at  Caerleon,  that  William  Tell  shot  at  the  apple  on  his  son's 
head,  may,  or  may  not,  be  authentic  facts  which  will  stand 
the  test  of  historic  criticism.  But  they  were  for  ages  be- 
lieved to  be  facts.  The  belief  in  their  truth  helped  to  shape  the 
character  and  the  convictions  of  after-ages.  They  had  there- 


History  in  Poetry.  351 

fore  all  the  force  of  truths,  and  they  deserve  study  just  as  much 
as  facts  which  can  be  historically  verified.  From  this  point  of 
view  Sophocles  is  as  true  and  profound  as  Thucydides;  Shake- 
speare as  true  as  Bacon,  and  Chaucer  as  Froissart.  Schiller  in 
his  Wallenstein  is  as  much  a  historian  as  in  his  Thirty  Tears 
War.  Thackeray  when  he  wrote  Esmond,  after  taking  pains 
to  saturate  his  own  mind  with  the  literature,  the  manners,  and 
the  history  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  as  true  a  historian  as 
when  he  prepared  his  more  matter-of-fact  critical  estimates  of 
the  lives  of  Addison  and  Steele  and  their  contemporaries. 
When  Ben  Jonson  wrote  Catiline  and  Sejamis,  or  Shakespeare 
Julius  CcBsar  and  King  John,  they  were  historians  in  even  a 
truer  sense  than  if  they  had  sought  without  the  aid  of  the  vivi- 
fying imagination  to  give  a  bare  narrative  of  such  facts  as 
could  stand  the  test  of  destructive  criticism.  Considered  as  a 
picture  of  real  life,  is  not  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Marmion  or  Ivan- 
hoe  as  true  a  thing  as  his  History  of  Napoleon?  When  the 
author  wrote  the  last  as  mere  task-work  for  the  booksellers,  he 
very  conscientiously  consulted  his  authorities,  and  sought  to 
produce  an  orderly  and  connected  narrative.  But  when  he 
wrote  Ivanhoe  he  studied  the  manners  and  incidents  of  the  age, 
and  sought  to  penetrate  his  own  fancy  with  a  picture  of  its 
doings,  and  habits,  and  modes  of  thinking.  We  will  not  stop 
to  inquire  which  is  the  more  interesting  production:  that  is  a 
question  which  has  long  been  settled.  But  which,  for  all  prac- 
tical purposes,  is  the  truer  book,  and  the  more  important  con- 
tribution to  our  history?  Surely  there  is  a  higher  truth  than 
the  truth  of  mere  detail,  and  that  is  just  what  the  compiler  of 
annals  misses,  and  the  man  of  poetic  genius  seizes  and  retains. 
The  power 

"  To  show  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time" 

is  a  rare  one;  it  requires  not  only  knowledge  of  actual  occur- 
rences, but  philosophic  insight  enough  to  distinguish  between 
characteristic  and  exceptional  events,  and  imagination  enough 
to  select  and  adapt  the  materials,  and  to  give  unity  and  veri- 


352  History. 

similitude  to  the  whole  picture.  And  it  is  surely  as  im- 
portant to  us,  and  as  helpful  to  the  studies  of  our  pupils,  to 
know  what  impressiow  the  history  of  an  age  has  conveyed  to  a 
man  of  genius,  as  to  know  what  facts  a  laborious  compiler  may 
have  collected  about  ft.1  Do  not  let  us,  f  lien,  despise  the  help 
which  poets  and  even  novelists  can  afford  us  in  history.  They 
appeal,  in  a  way  in  which  no  mere  historian  can,  to  the  im- 
agination of  children,  and  to  that  love  of  pictures  and  of 
dramatic  incident,  which  is  so  strong  in  early  youth.  If  judi- 
ciously and  occasionally  used,  they  make  the  story  of  the  past 
a  more  real,  living  thing,  and  they  may  do  much  to  increase 
the  interest  and  pleasure  which  is  felt  by  pupils  in  historical 
study. 

And  so  it  will  be  seen  that  of  the  two  modes  of  teaching  his- 
Dangers  of  torv •  *^at  w^icu  relies  mainly  on  the  dry  bones  of  a 
relying  on  text-book  and  that  which  seeks  to  clothe  these 
teaching  bones  with  flesh  ana  blood,  and  give  to  them  vivid 
and  picturesque  reality,  I  greatly  prefer  the  second. 
But  we  must  not  be  insensible  to  the  faults  of  this  method  if  it 
is  pursued  alone.  It  iriay  easily  become  loose  and  desultory,  it 
is  apt  simply  to  ^aken  interest  and  animation,  without  taking 
means  to  secure  that  this  interest  serves  a  real  educational  pur- 
pose. We  have  before  shown  that  picturesque  teaching  sonaje- 
times  leads  the  pupil  to  mistake  interesting  general  impressions 
for  real  knowledge;  and  worst  of  all,  that  it  encourages  him  to 


1  On  this  point  Archdeacon  Hare  has  a  pregnant  remark:  "The  poet 
may  choose  such  characters,  and  may  bring  them  forward  iu  such  situa- 
tions as  shall  be  typical  of  the  truths  which  he  wishes  to  embody, 
whereas  the  historian  is  tied  down  to  particular  actions,  most  of  them 
performed  officially,  and  rarely  such  as  display  much  of  character 
unless  in  moments  of  exaggerated  vehemence.  Indeed  many  histories 
give  you  little  else  than  a  narrative  of  military  affairs,  marches,  and 
counter-marches,  skirmishes,  and  battles,  which,  except  during  some 
great  crisis  of  a  truly  national  war,  afford  about  as  complete  a  picture 
of  a  nation's  life  as  an  account  of  the  doses  of  physic  a  man  may  have 
taken,  and  the  surgical  operations  he  may  have  undergone,  would  be  of 
the  life  of  an  individual." 


Dangers  of  Merely  Picturesque  Teaching.    353 

indulge  in  sweeping  historical  generalization  without  knowing 
accurately  the  data  on  which  it  is  founded.  All  this  should  he 
known  and  guarded  against.  It  can.only  be  effectually  pre- 
sented by  localizing  each  fact  as  it  is  learned  in  your  Time- 
map,  and  by  building  up  a  fabric  of  dates,  names,  Acts  of  Par- 
liament and  other  details,  which  will  sustain  and  justify  the 
historical  impressions  you  wish  to  convey. 

Keeping  this  in  view,  you  may  be  well  content  to  set  before 
yourself,  as  the  main  object  in  teaching  History,  the  kindling 
of  a  strong  interest  in  the  subject,  rather  than  the  covering  of  a 
large  area  of  mere  information.  For  if  you  do  the  second  and 
not  the  first,  your  pupil  will  not  be  likely  to  pursue  the  subject 
for  himself.  But  if  you  do  the  first  and  not  the  second,  all  the 
rest  may  be  safely  left  to  his  own  discretion  and  reading.  His- 
tory, we  may  observe,  is  the  one  subject  of  school  instruction  in 
which  your  pupil  can  do  best  without  your  aid,  and  which 
when  you  have  once  kindled':an  appetite  for  it,  you  may  most 
safely  drop  out  of  your  regular  course,  and  leave  to  take  care 
of  itself. 

Lastly,  I  would  urge  upon  you  the-;  importance  of  lessons  on 
the  government  and  constitution  under  which  we   Lesgons  on 
live.    It  is  absurd  to  find  children  knowing  about  the  govern- 
the  Heptarchy  and  the  Feudal  System,  and  yet  constitution 
not  knowing  how  our  present  Parliament  is  con-   of  En&land< 
stituted,  and  what  are  its  duties  and  functions.     Not  unfre- 
quently  I  find  in  examining  candidates  for  the  public  service 
students  who  really  possess  a  good  deal  of  book-knowledge 
about  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon  and  the  Act  of  Settlement, 
showing  lamentable  ignorance  as  to  the  way  in  which  laws  are 
made  at  this  moment;  telling  me,  e.g.,  that  all  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment originate  with  the  Commons  and  must  go  to  the  Upper 
House  for  sanction. 

In  giving  a  series  of  special  lessons  on  our  laws  and  con- 
stitution you  will  not  be  content  with  Hallam  and  Creasy  and 
the  constitutionalists  who  seem  to  think  that  the  whole  of  the 
History  of   England  resolves  itself  into  a  struggle  between 
23 


354  History. 

Crown  and  people,  and  into  the  gradual  assertion  of  the  right 
Lessons  on'  °f  representation,  and  of  what  Carlyle  cynically  dc- 

the,,duti?s  *"*  scribes  as  the  liberty  to  tax  one's  self.  That  indeed 
well  as  the 

rights  of  is  a  very  important  part  of  English  History,  bur 

citizenship.  it  ig   nQt   the   wnoje>      Tne  removal   Of   tne   j^ 

pediments  to  printing  and  to  the  diffusion  of  knowledge;  the 
history  of  Slavery  and  of  its  abolition;  the  gradual  disappear- 
ance of  religious  disabilities,  economic  and  commercial  reform, 
the  imposition  and  working  of  the  Poor  Law;  the  provision  for 
National  Education  in  the  form  of  ancient  endowments,  and 
afterwards  by  public  grants;  the  reform  of  the  representation; 
the  growth  of  literature,  the  extension  of  our  Colonies — all 
these  subjects  deserve  to  be  looked  at  separately,  and  to  furnish 
the  material  for  special  lessons  in  the  lecture  form.  Indeed  I 
am  disposed  to  recommend  that  concurrently  with  the  study  of 
history  by  periods,  you  should  arrange  a  series  of  lessons,  ac- 
cording to  subjects,  on  this  wise: 

The  Crown  and  its  prerogatives.  Taxes. 

The  House  of  Lords.  A  general  election. 

The  House  of  Commons.  Treason. 

The  history  and  progress  of  an  Act  The  Army, 

of  Parliament.  The  Navy. 

Ministers.  The  Civil  Service. 

Judges.  Public  Trusts. 

Magistrates.  The  administration  of  towns  and 
Municipal  Corporations.  parishes. 

Juries.  Guardians  of  the  poor. 

Such  a  course,  carefully  prepared,  and  well  illustrated  by 
historical  examples,  will  have  the  incidental  effect  of  making 
the  scholars  sensible  of  the  responsibility  which  will  hereafter 
devolve  upon  them  as  members  of  a  free  community;  a  state 
which  asks  the  voluntary  services  of  her  citizens  in  the  admin- 
istration of  justice,  in  the  management  of  public  trusts,  and  in 
the  conduct  of  public  business.  Every  boy  should  be  made  to 
feel  that  unbought  services  will  be  required  of  him  as  member 
of  parliament,  magistrate,  guardian  or  trustee,  and  that  it  will 


Patriotism.  355 


be  honorable  to  render  them.  This  sense  of  civic  duty  seems 
to  me  the  necessary  correlative  to  that  consciousness  of  civic 
rights  which  Hallam  and  the  constitutional  writers  are  apt  to 
dwell  on  so  exclusively.  You  will  find  materials  for  such  les- 
sons not  only  in  Hallam  and  Creasy,  but  also  in  Bagehot  and 
in  Sir  Erskine  May. 

Nor  ought  we  to  overlook  the  necessity  for  so  teaching  as  to 
inspire  our  scholars  with  a  love  and  admiration  . 
for  the  country  we  live  in  and  for  the  institutions 
by  which  we  are  governed.  It  used  to  be  the  fashion  much 
more  than  now,  for  Englishmen,  especially  after  dinner,  to  talk 
much  of  our  glorious  and  unrivalled  constitution  in  Church 
and  State.  No  doubt  there  was  in  all  this  an  element  of  insular 
boastfulness,  and  perhaps  a  little  selfishness  and  vulgarity. 
But  after  all  patriotism  is  one  of  the  things  which  our  teaching 
ought  to  cultivate — a  rational  and  affectionate  regard  for  the 
country  in  which  we  have  been  born,  and  for  the  privileges  we 
enjoy  in  it: 

"  It  is  the  land  that  freemen  till, 

That  sober  suited  Freedom  chose, 
The  land  where,  girt  with  friends  or  foes, 
A  man  may  speak  the  thing  he  will. 

A  land  of  settled  government, 
A  land  of  just  and  old  renown, 
Where  freedom  broadens  slowly  down 

From  precedent  to  precedent. 

Where  faction  seldom  gathers  head. 
But  by  degrees  to  fulness  wrought 
The  strength  of  some  diffusive  thought 

Hath  tune  and  space  to  work  and  spread." 

And  in  every  English  school  something  at  least  should  be 
done  to  make  the  scholars  proud  of  this  glorious  heritage,  and 
to  animate  them  with  a  noble  ambition  to  live  lives  and  to  do 
deeds  which  shall  be  worthy  of  it. 


356  Natural  Science. 


XIV.    NATURAL  SCIENCE. 

IT  ought  to  be  frankly  premised-  here  that  I  have  had  no 
The  place  of  special  teaching  experience  on  the  particular  sub- 
enceinschool  iec*  °^  this  lecture  such  as  gives  me  any  right  to 
education.  dogmatize  upon  it.  Nevertheless,  we  may  with 
advantage  consider  the  reasons  for  including  such  studies  in 
our  school-course,  and  the  place  they  ought  to  hold  in  it,  for  it 
is,  after  all,  out  of  such  considerations  that  all  discovery  of 
right  methods  ought  to  arise.  The  skilled  teacher  must  look 
at  the  whole  of  the  large  domain  of  the  inductive  sciences, 
those  which  depend  on  observation  and  experiment,  and  ask 
himself  how  they  are  related  to  his  special  work.  Until  re- 
cently studies  of  this  kind  were  rarely  or  never  recognized  as 
necessary  parts  of  a  liberal  education.  Even  now  they  are 
fighting  the  way  to  recognition  by  slow  degrees  and  against 
some  opposition.  The  staple  of  school  and  university  instruc- 
tion down  to  our  own  time  has  consisted  of  the  study  of  lan- 
guage and  that  of  pure  science,  including  mathematics  and 
logic.  On  the  part  of  the  great  majority  of  educated  men  hi 
England,  whose  own  minds  had  been  formed  in  this  way,  there 
has  been  a  strong  feeling  that  all  true  intellectual  training  was 
to  be  had  in  connection  with  these  time-honored  studies.  It  is 
true  that  new  and  most  fertile  fields  of  investigation  have  been 
discovered  and  explored.  Geology  has  brought  to  light  mar- 
vellous facts  respecting  the  history  of  our  earth,  electricity  and 
magnetism  have  been  applied  hi  unexpected  ways  to  the  com- 
fort and  convenience  of  man,  biologists  have  investigated  the 
conditions  and  resources  of  life,  astronomers  have  discovered 
6y  spectrum  analysis  the  nature  and  even  the  chemical  compo- 


Its  Place  in  Education.  357 

sition  of  the  heavenly  bodies;  the  chemist,  the  physicist,  the 
botanist,  have  each  in  his  turn  revealed  to  us  some  hidden 
forces  in  nature,  and  taught  us  how  those  forces  may  be  made 
available  in  enriching,  beautifying,  and  ennobling  the  life  of 
man  on  the  earth. 
It  must  be  owned  however  that  these  researches  have  owed 

little  to  the  direct  influence  of  our  schools  and   n 

The  triumphs 
colleges.     It  is  not  by  academically  trained  men,    of  science 

as  a  rule,  that  the  great  physical  discoveries  have  due  tofchool 
been  made.  Those  who  have  made  these  dis-  °r  university 
coveries  have  broken  away,  so  to  speak,  from  the 
traditional  life  of  a  student  and  a  scholar;  have  quitted  the 
study  of  books  and  betaken  themselves  to  the  study  of  things. 
They  have  come  face  to  face  with  the  realities  of  life,  have 
seen  and  handled  the  materials  of  which  the  visible  world  was 
composed,  and  thus  have  in  time  formulated  an  entirely  new 
body  of  knowledge,  very  different  in  kind  from  that  which  is 
to  be  found  in  the  books  which  are  called  learned.  And  hence 
there  has  been  for  a  time  an  apparent  antagonism  between  the 
men  of  learning  and  the  great  discoverers,  inventors,  and  ex- 
perimenters in  the  world  of  physical  science.  Centuries  ago 
Socrates  taught  that  the  only  studies  which  were  of  real  value 
to  man  were  those  which  related  to  his  own  nature  and  destiny, 
to  his  duty  as  a  member  of  a  family  or  a  state,  to  the  culture  of 
his  own  faculties,  and  to  the  relation  in  which  he  stood  to  the 
gods  and  to  his  fellow-men.  As  to  investigations  into  the  order 
of  the  heavens  or  into  the  nature  of  physical  laws,  he  thought 
them  presumptuous  and  sterile.  The  gods,  he  thought,  had 
purposely  concealed  such  knowledge  from  men,  while  in  regard 
to  the  means  whereby  the  material  comfort  of  man  might  be 
increased  he  would  certainly  have  dismissed  such  considera- 
tions as  mean  and  ignoble,  fit  only  for  a  tradesman  or  mechanic, 
but  unworthy  of  a  philosopher. 

Some  such  feeling  has  survived  among  learned  men,  even 
down  to  our  own  time.  You  may  find  it  in  such  utterances  as 
"  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man."  It  is  shown  in  the 


358  Natural  Science. 

greater  importance  assigned  to  metaphysics  and  philology,  to 
logic,  to  mental,  moral,  and  theological  speculation,  and  to 
pure  or  deductive  science,  in  all  systems  of  academic  instruc- 
tion; and  in  the  distrust  felt  by  many,  even  down  to  our  own 
time,  of  experimental  science  as  something  material,  loose,  and 
just  a  little  commercial  and  vulgar. 

In  all  the  recent  investigations  into  the  condition  of  the  great 
p  ition  of  Grammar  Schools  nothing  was  more  striking  than 
natural  the  position  of  complete  inferiority  occupied  by 

the  study  of  the  physical  sciences,  even  in  the  rare 
cases  in  which  they  were  recognized  and  admitted  into  the 
curriculum.  The  head-master  was  generally  what  is  called  a 
classical  man,  and  naturally  regarded  success  in  his  own  de- 
partment as  the  best  test  of  a  boy's  possession  of  a  gentleman's 
education.  The  teacher  of  physical  science  was  only  an  occa- 
sional lecturer,  poorly  paid  and  little  considered,  and  boys  who 
devoted  much  time  to  that  branch  of  study  were  understood  to 
have  lost  caste  in  some  way,  and  to  fall  short  of  the  best  ideal 
which  the  school  sought  to  set  up  for  its  scholars.  Nor  can  it 
be  wondered  at,  that  cultivated  men  felt  a  little  reluctance  to 
admit  the  physical  sciences  to  honorable  recognition  as  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  school  course.  For  much  of  what  called 
itself  science  was  essentially  unscientific  in  its  character  and  in 
its  methods  of  investigation.  The  teachers  were  often  mere 
specialists,  entirely  deficient  in  that  general  cultivation  which 
alone  enables  a  man  to  see  his  own  subject  in  true  perspective 
and  proportion,  and  to  teach  that  subject  in  the  most  effective 
way.  A  series  of  lectures  illustrated  by  an  orrery,  on  the 
"sublime  science  of  Astronomy"  in  ladies'  schools,  or  a  few 
amusing  experiments  in  chemistry  in  boys'  schools,  have  often 
represented  the  teaching  of  science,  and  have  been  regarded 
very  justly  by  head-masters  and  mistresses  with  a  little  con- 
tempt. "May  I  ask  you,"  said  Lord  Taunton,  as  chairman  of 
the  Schools  Inquiry  Commission,  to  a  schoolmaster  who  in  his 
evidence  was  giving  rather  unusual  testimony  to  the  interest 
his  boys  took  in  physical  science,  "  what  department  of  science 


Its  Intellectual  Claims.  359 

interests  the  scholars  most?"  "  I  think,"  was  the  reply,"  it  is 
the  chemistry  of  the  explosive  substances."  Of  course,  a  bright 
light  and  a  noise  are  amusing  to  schoolboys,  but  their  interest 
in  such  phenomena  is  no  very  strong  proof  that  they  are  learn- 
ing science  in  any  sense,  or  for  any  really  valuable  purpose. 

And  all  this  time  there  has  been  an  increasing  number  of 
thinkers  and  students,  who,  while  not  destitute  of  Modern 
that  general  intellectual  training  which  is  to  be  S 
got  in  the  old  beaten  track  of  classics  and  mathe-  this  subject, 
matics,  have  gone  out  into  the  wide  domain  of  physical  research 
and  found  it  more  fruitful  than  they  expected.  And  they  say 
to  those  who  live  in  the  academic  world — the  world  of  books 
and  of  scholarly  traditions,  "  You  are  mistaken  in  supposing 
that  this  is  a  merely  material  and  practical  region,  while  yours  is 
essentially  intellectual.  There  is  here  a  body  of  truth,  of  the 
highest  practical  utility  no  doubt,  but  also  of  the  greatest  value 
for  educational  purposes.  The  laws  and  principles  by  which 
the  facts  of  the  material  world  may  be  explained  and  co-ordi- 
nated are  quite  as  uniform,  quite  as  beautiful,  and  as  far-reach- 
ing in  their  applications  as  any  of  the  laws  of  language  or  the 
truths  of  mathematics.  Moreover,  the  processes  of  thought  re- 
quired in  the  study  of  these  questions  are  just  as  rigorous,  just 
as  stimulating,  stand  in  just  as  close  a  relation  to  the  intellec- 
tual needs  of  a  well-instructed  man  as  those  involved  in  the 
older  studies.  You  can  make  the  teaching  of  physical  science 
as  fruitful,  as  thoroughly  disciplinal  for  all  the  higher  purposes 
contemplated  in  a  liberal  education  as  the  teaching  of  Greek  or 
of  geometry  if  you  will  only  first  recognize  the  possibility  of 
making  it  so,  if  you  will  encourage  skilled  and  accomplished 
men  to  take  up  this  branch  of  instruction,  and  are  ready  to 
give  them  the  same  status  and  encouragement  which  you  now 
give  to  accomplished  teachers  of  philology  or  history.  Enlarge 
your  conception  of  what  a  liberal  education  means.  Let  that 
conception  include  some  acquaintance  with  the  actual  constitu- 
tion of  the  world  we  live  in,  of  the  forces  which  surround  us, 
of  the  framework  of  our  own  bodies  and  the  laws  of  matter 


360  Natural  Science. 


and  of  life,  and  make  provision  for  these  things,  as  well  as  for 
those  facts  and  speculations  which  are  to  be  found  only  in 
books,  and  which  have  hitherto  usurped  the  name  of  scholar- 
ship." 

There  is  surely  great  force  hi  this  appeal,  and  no  one  of  us 
Reasons  for  wn°  has  any  power  of  controlling  the  education 
these  claims.  of  tne  young  can  properly  disregard  it.  We  may 
wish,  for  our  own  parts,  that  some  Huxley  or  Tyndall  had 
enunciated  this  message  before  we  ourselves  went  to  school,  for 
then  we  might  discuss  with  greater  advantage  the  true  claims 
of  physical  science  and  the  place  it  should  hold  in  a  school 
course.  But  of  the  legitimacy  of  those  claims  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  and  it  may  be  well  for  us  to  try  to  analyze  them. 

For,  consider  in  the  first  place  the  immense  practical  useful- 
CD  The  ness  of  some  knowledge  of  physical  science  and 
physical0'  *ne  number  of  unexpected  applications  to  the  use 
truths.  and  service  of  man  which  are  found  to  grow  out, 
not  only  of  every  new  discovery,  but  of  every  honest  effort  to 
submit  old  discoveries  to  the  test  of  new  observation  and  ex- 
periment. One  man  studies  carefully  the  nature  of  light,  tries 
experiments  with  refracting  media,  with  reflecting  instruments, 
separates  the  rays,  ascertains  the  chemical  effect  of  certain  rays 
on  certain  substances.  He  does  all  this  perhaps  from  mere  in- 
terest in  the  discovery  of  new  and  beautiful  truth,  and  has  no 
suspicion  that  speculative  experiments  of  this  kind  can  serve 
any  immediate  practical  purpose.  But  soon  it  appears  that 
what  he  has  done  enables  us  to  find  some  new  illuminating 
power,  or  that  out  of  it  grows  the  whole  art  of  photography, 
with  all  its  wonderful  developments,  its  power  to  record  what 
is  beautiful,  to  represent  to  us  a  beloved  countenance,  to  register 
the  phenomena  of  nature,  and  even  to  aid  in  the  detection  of 
crime.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  almost  every 
new  and  valuable  invention  from  the  spinning-jenny  to  the 
telephone,  which  has  increased  the  control  of  man  over  nature, 
economized  his  time  or  added  to  his  comfort,  is  the  product  of 
scientific  knowledge,  and  often  of  experiments  and  researches 


The  Poetry  in  Science.  361 

which  had  at  first  no  merely  utilitarian  purpose,  but  were 
undertaken  with  the  sole  and  simple  object  of  discovering  the 
secrets  of  nature,  and  revealing  truth.  And  there  is  not  a  single 
lesson  by  means  of  which  you  can  convey  to  a  child  a  strong 
interest  in  any  one  department  of  physical  science  which  may 
not  develop  itself,  as  it  works  and  germinates  in  his  mind,  into 
results  and  discoveries  of  unexpected  value,  and  add  enormously 
to  the  resources  and  to  the  enjoyments  of  mankind. 

A  second  reason  for  giving  to  a  learner  some  acquaintance 
with  nature  and  with  the  laws  which  govern  her  /^  Their 
phenomena  is  the  extreme  beauty  of  the  truths  beauty  and 
themselves.  Even  if  nothing  useful  were  to  be  attractive? 
gained  by  the  study  of  science,  it  would  be  a  ness- 
shame  to  pass  our  lives  in  this  well-ordered  and  harmonious 
world,  and  catch  no  echoes  of  the  music  of  its  laws;  to  be  sur- 
rounded every  day  by  mysteries,  none  of  which  we  ever  tried 
to  penetrate;  to  possess  a  body  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made, 
and  to  cast  no  thoughts  on  its  structure,  its  physiology,  the 
functions  of  its  parts,  the  marvellous  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends;  to  find  one's  self  conveyed  60  miles  an  hour  through  the 
agency  of  steam,  and  one's  thoughts  conveyed  a  thousand  times 
faster  by  the  agency  of  electricity;  and  yet  to  know  nothing  of 
the  nature  of  these  forces  or  the  laws  of  their  action;  to  walk 
amid  flowers  and  rocks,  glaciers  and  avalanches,  and  to  remain 
uninstructed  and  untouched  by  them.  But  it  is  mainly  by  the 
conscious  and  systematic  study  of  natural  science  that  we  learn 
to  notice  all  these  things  and  to  draw  right  inferences  from 
them.  It  must  be  knowledge  of  nature  after  all  that  is  at  the 
basis  of  a  true  enjoyment  of  her  works,  and  a  true  reverence 
for  her  Author. 

"  Is  it  not,"  says  Herbert  Spencer,  "  an  absurd  and  almost  a  sacrilegi- 
ous belief  that  the  more  a  man  studies  Nature,  the  less  he  reveres  it? 
Think  you  that  a  drop  of  water,  which  to  the  vulgar  eye  is  merely  a 
drop  of  water,  loses  anything  in  the  eye  of  the  physicist  who  knows  that 
its  elements  are  held  together  by  a  force  which  if  suddenly  liberated 
would  produce  a  flash  of  lightning?  Think  you  that  what  is  carelessly 


362  Natural  Science. 


looked  upon  by  the  uninitiated  as  a  mere  snow-flake  does  not  suggest 
higher  associations  to  one  who  has  seen  through  a  microscope  the  won- 
drously-varied  and  elegant  forms  of  snow-crystals?  Think  you  that  the 
'rounded  rock  marked  with  parallel  scratches  calls  up  as  much  poetry 
in  an  ignorant  mind  as  in  the  mind  of  a  geologist  who  knows  that  over 
this  rock  a  glacier  slid  a  million  of  years  ago?  The  truth  is,  that  those 
who  have  never  entered  on  scientific  pursuits  are  blind  to  most  of  the 
poetry  by  which  they  are  surrounded.  Whoever  has  not  in  youth  col- 
lected plants  and  insects,  knows  not  half  the  halo  of  interest  which  lanes 
and  hedge-rows  can  assume.  Whoever  has  not  sought  for  fossils,  has 
little  idea  of  the  poetical  associations  that  surround  the  places  where 
imbedded-  treasures  were  found.  Whoever  at  the  seaside  has  not  had  a 
microscope  and  aquarium,  has  yet  to  learn  what  the  highest  pleasures 
of  the  seaside  are." 

But  after  all,  the  main  reason  for  teaching  some  branch  of 
(3)  The  dis-  physical  science  is  to  be  found  in  considering  the 
ofthTmduc-6  sort  of  processes  by  which  the  truths  of  such 
tive  process,  science  are  investigated,  and  the  faculties  of  mind 
which  are  exercised  in  the  course  of  physical  investigations. 
For  in  the  first  place  a  student  of  any  branch  of  natural  history 
or  science  must  learn  to  observe  carefully,  to  use  his  eyes  and 
to  know  the  difference  between  facts  which  are  abnormal  and 
facts  which  are  typical.  Then  he  must  come  into  actual  con- 
tact with  realities,  must  handle  objects,  must  try  experiments, 
must  question  matter  and  nature  closely,  must  wait  and  watch, 
must  invent  new  forms  of  test  until  he  is  quite  sure  tbat  he  has 
hold  of  the  true  answer.  And  when  he  has  observed  the 
phenomena,  he  has  to  reason  from  them  inductively,  and  pass 
from  particular  facts  to  the  general  laws  which  underlie  and 
comprehend  them.  "We  saw  in  considering  the  subject  of 
mathematics  that  certain  axioms  and  data  being  postulated  the 
reasoner  proceeded  deductively,  and  out  of  them  unfolded  in 
due  sequence  an  orderly  series  of  particular  truths.  We  saw 
that  mathematics  afforded  a  discipline  in  pure  logic  in  passing 
from  premise  to  conclusion,  in  detecting  fallacies  in  reasoning, 
and  generally  in  deducing  special  inferences  from  wide,  com- 
prehensive, and  admitted  truths.  But  in  the  physical  sciences 
the  mind  proceeds  in  exactly  the  opposite  direction.  You 


Process  of  Inductive  Reasoning.  363 

begin  with  the  particulars,  you  combine  and  co-ordinate  them, 
and  at  last,  when  you  have  enough  of  them,  you  arrive  at  some 
general  proposition  which  includes  them  all.  This  generalized 
truth,  which  is  the  starting-point  in  mathematics,  is  the  goal  in 
physics;  and  whereas  researches  in  the  physical  sciences  tell 
you  how  to  get  at  your  major  premise,  or  your  universal  truth, 
it  is  the  business  of  mathematics  and  of  logic  to  tell  you  what 
inferences  you  may  deduce  from  such  a  truth  when  you  have 
got  it.  So  all  investigations  into  the  phenomena  of  nature 
must  begin  by  the  observation  of  facts.  The  observer  must 
put  his  facts  together,  must  group  them  according  to  their  re- 
semblances and  differences,  and  see  what  they  have  to  say  for 
themselves.  He  must  have  no  prepossessions,  no  wish  to  twist 
the  facts  into  a  particular  direction.  His  theory  or  final  gene- 
ralization when  it  comes  must  have  been  actually  suggested  by 
the  facts. 

This  kind  of  procedure  is  very  different  from  that  by  which 
the  mind  acts  in  syllogistic  reasoning;  and  it  is  not  inductive 
wonderful  that  in  the  middle  ages,  when  people  reasoning, 
began  to  study  the  nature  of  matter  and  of  force,  they  should 
have  imagined  that  all  truth  about  these  things  was  to  be  ob- 
tained in  the  same  way  as  the  truths  about  geometry,  by  the 
methods  of  Aristotelian  logic.  Hence,  even  the  early  physicists 
hampered  themselves  with  certain  dogmas,  or  first  principles, 
which  seemed  to  them  self-evident,  that  "nothing  can  act 
where  it  is  not,"  that  "  nature  abhorred  a  vacuum,"  that  there 
was  somewhere  in  the  world  a  substance  which  would  trans- 
mute all  metals  into  gold,  that  some  source  of  perpetual  motion 
could  be  discovered,  or  that  "out  of  nothing  nothing  can 
come."  It  was  against  this  kind  of  assumption  that  Bacon 
protested.  HypotJieses  non  jingo — I  fashion  no  hypotheses,  he 
said.  "  Man  is  the  minister  and  interpreter  of  nature."  It  is 
his  business  to  find  out  what  she  actually  says  and  does,  and 
when  he  has  thus  acquired  data  and  facts  enough  he  may 
construct  upon  them  a  theory  that  shall  fit  the  facts,  but  not 
before. 


364  Natural  Science. 


A  well-known  line  of  a  Roman  poet  expresses  the  desire  of 
The  search  mankind  to  know  the  causes  of  things,  "  Felix  qu: 
for  causes,  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas."  You  naturally 
wish  to  know  causes;  but  it  may  be  that  nature  will  not  reveal 
causes  to  you  at  all — but  only  facts.  I  take  up  something  in 
my  hand.  What  happens  when  I  take  it  up?  One  set  of 
muscles  contracts  and  allows  my  fingers  to  stretch  and  to  open; 
another  set  of  muscles  contracts  as  I  grasp  the  object.  Why 
do  these  muscles  contract?  Because  they  were  affected  by 
nerves.  How  came  the  nerves  to  convey  the  impulse?  The 
impulse  was  given  from  the  brain  with  which  the  nerve  is  con- 
nected. How  did  this  impulse  originate?  In  a  wish  that  I 
formed.  Do  all  the  motions  of  the  body  originate  in  acts  of 
consciousness  or  in  acts  of  will  ?  No,  for  some  muscles,  those 
of  the  heart,  and  digestive  apparatus,  for  example,  alternately 
expand  and  contract  with  great  regularity  without  any  volition 
of  ours,  indeed  we  could  not  by  an  act  of  will  keep  up  these 
motions  if  they  stopped,  or  stop  them  when  they  were  going 
on.  Are  these  automatic  motions  then  produced  by  nervous 
impulse?  Yes.  But  whence  then  does  the  impulse  originate? 
Not  in  this  case  from  the  brain,  but  from  other  nervous  centres 
or  ganglia  situated  in  the  spinal  cord.  Is  it  then  so,  that  move- 
ments which  are  conscious,  and  are  produced  or  controlled  by 
the  will,  come  from  nerves  which  communicate  with  the  brain, 
and  that  automatic  and  unconscious  muscular  movements 
originate  in  other  and  inferior  centres  of  nervous  action?  Yes. 

Observe  in  all  this,  I  have  been  seeking  to  know  the  cause. 
But  I  am  no  nearer  knowing  the  cause  at  the  end  than  at  the 
beginning.  Why  and  how  a  thought  or  wish  of  mine  which 
seems  wholly  spiritual  and  mental  should  produce  the  physical 
result  of  setting  a  particular  nerve  in  tremulous  motion,  and 
why  that  motion  should  in  turn  cause  a  muscle  to  contract,  is 
as  great  a  mystery  to  me  as  ever  The  only  answers  to  my 
questions  have  been  statements  of  fact  It  is  so.  Such  a  cir- 
cumstance is  always  followed  by  such  another  circumstance. 
There  is  the  antecedent  and  its  uniform  consequent.  That  is 


The  Search  for  Reasons.  365 

all.  Of  the  hidden  nexus,  or  necessity  which  should  cause  the 
particular  antecedent  to  be  followed  by  the  particular  conse- 
quent, I  know  nothing. 

Take  another  example.  I  let  this  pen  drop  out  of  my  hand. 
Why  does  it  fall  ?  Because  I  did  not  prevent  it.  g^^  f0r 
But  why  should  it  move  in  that  particular  direction,  reasons, 
when  I  gave  it  no  impulse  but  merely  ceased  to  hold  it  ?  Because 
all  objects  when  disengaged  tend  to  fall  to  the  earth.  But  why 
should  bodies  fall  towards  the  earth?  Because  the  earth  is  a 
very  large  mass  of  matter,  and  smaller  bodies  are  always  at- 
tracted to  large  ones.  But  why  and  how  do  large  bodies  be- 
come thus  attractive?  Well,  it  is  observed  that  throughout 
nature  all  masses  of  matter  exercise  mutual  attraction  and  that 
the  extent  of  this  attraction  is  determined  partly  by  their  mass 
or  density,  and  partly  by  their  distances  from  each  other.  Is 
this  true  of  the  planets  and  of  the  Sun?  Yes.  There  is  one 
broad  statement  which  Kepler  formulated  in  reference  to  this 
great  fact  of  gravitation.  It  may  be  expressed  thus,  Gravity  = 
Mass  H-  The  Distance  squared,  and  is  often  called  the  law  of 
gravitation. 

Now  you  will  notice  here  again  that  at  each  step  I  have  asked 
the  question  Why?  and  that  at  no  step  have  I  re-  N  t 
ceived  an  answer.  The  answer  I  have  obtained  in  nor  reasons, 
each  case  is  the  statement  of  a  fact  only;  but  then  but  facts' 
each  fact  was  one  broader,  more  comprehensive  and  general  than 
that  which  preceded  it.  The  first  fact  was  single;  it  was  within 
the  range  of  a  little  child's  experience — that  the  pen  fell.  The  last 
statement  of  fact,  the  great  truth  of  gravitation,  was  far-reach- 
ing, sublime,  co-extensive  with  the  whole  range  of  the  universe 
so  far  as  man  can  know  anything  about  it  all — a  statement  of 
fact  which  includes  in  its  generalization  the  explanation — so  we 
call  it — of  the  movements  of  the  atmosphere,  of  the  rising  and 
falling  of  the  tides,  and  of  the  march  of  the  planets  on  their 
heavenly  way.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  nothing  has  been  ex- 
plained or  accounted  for,  no  mystery  has  been  solved.  Each 
single  fact  derived  from  observation  has  been  referred  to  some 


366  Natural  Science. 

larger  fact  derived  from  wider  observation,  and  the  mind  has 
been  led  to  correlate  a  number  of  separate  and  diverse  experi- 
ences under  one  comprehensive  statement,  to  detect  unity  where 
there  was  apparent  diversity;  to  substitute  a  great  generalization 
for  a  little  one,  a  great  mystery  for  a  little  one.  That  is  all. 

And  surely  that  is  much.  Is  it  not  a  large  part  of  the  educa- 
Large  truths  **on  °^  a^  of  us  to  be  enabled  to  lift  up  the 
instead  of  thoughts  from  what  is  petty  and  transient  and  ex- 
ies'  ceptional  and  to  recognize  in  its  stead  what  is  vast, 
and  typical,  permanent  and  universal?  Truly  we  are  the  richer 
for  the  perception  of  the  larger  truth,  even  though  it  is  just  as 
mysterious  and  inexplicable  to  us  as  the  smaller  truth  was  to 
the  little  child.  "  In  wonder,"  says  Coleridge,  "  all  philosophy 
begins,  and  in  wonder  it  ends."  The  infant  looks  up  into  the 
sky  with  awe  and  bewilderment.  The  wisest  man,  when  he 
knows  all  about  the  stars  and  their  sizes  and  their  distances  and 
their  chemical  constituents,  is  fain  to  say,  "  When  I  consider 
Thy  heavens  the  work  of  Thy  fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars 
which  Thou  hast  ordained,  what  is  man  that  Thou  art  mind- 
ful of  him,  and  the  son  of  man  that  Thou  so  regard est  him?" 

It  is  also  to  be  observed  that  the  ultimate  object  to  be  attained 
What  are  m  ^e  Pursuit  of  physical  science  is  the  perception 
Laws  of  of  what  is  called  a  law.  We  speak  of  the  Law  of 
gravitation  or  of  the  correlation  of  forces.  But  the 
word  Law  is  here  used  in  a  very  special  sense.  In  the  sphere 
of  morals  and  religion,  it  implies  prescription  and  authority  on 
the  one  side,  obedience  and  obligation  on  the  other.  But  in 
physics  the  word  is  simply  used  to  describe  some  statement  of 
ascertained  fact,  some  general  truth  derived  from  observation. 
It  is  not  a  law  in  any  other  sense.  We  may  talk  loosely  and 
popularly  of  obeying  the  laws  of  nature.  But  what  we  mean 
is  simply  this — that  there  are  the  observed  facts;  that  experience 
leads  us  to  conclude  that  what  has  proved  to  be  uniform  within 
the  range  of  our  experience  will  continue  to  be  uniform  under 
the  same  conditions;  and  that  in  planning  our  own  actions,  in 
inventing,  contriving,  and  adapting  the  forces  of  nature  for  our 


Processes  of  Thought.  367 

own  purposes,  we  must  take  these  facts  for  granted,  and  not 
expect  them  to  be  modified  to  suit  our  will. 

And  if  this  be  a  correct  description  of  the  way  in  which  truth 
relating  to  natural  and  experimental  science  is  at-  Processes  of 
tained,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  how  important  is  the  q^raiin'phy- 
mental  discipline  through  which  the  student  must  sical  studies, 
pass  in  arriving  at  such  truth.  He  must  begin  by  noticing  the 
phenomena,  must  put  together  and  register  the  results  of  his 
observation;  must  hesitate  to  generalize  too  soon,  must  suspend 
his  judgment,  until  he  has  facts  enough,  must  verify  each  hy- 
pothesis by  new  experiments;  must  learn  how  to  make  a  legiti- 
mate generalization  from  a  multitude  of  particulars;  must  hold 
his  generalized  truth,  even  when  he  has  it,  only  provisionally, 
knowing  that  it  too  may  possibly  require  to  be  corrected,  or  at 
least  absorbed  by  some  larger  generalization.  And  even  when 
he  recognizes  a  grand  and  apparently  universal  law  such  as  that 
of  gravitation  he  must  leave  room  in  a  corner  of  his  mind  for 
the  possibility  of  the  existence  of  systems  and  regions  "  some- 
where out  of  human  view"  to  which  the  law  of  gravitation 
haply  does  not  extend. 

And  do  you  not  see  that  the  processes  of  mind  thus  brought 
into  action  are  very  nearly  akin  to  those  by  which   These  pro- 

we  are  every  day  forming  our  judgments  about  cesses  avaa- 

,       J        J  able  in  all  the 

men  and  women,  about  political  events,  about  the   intercourse 

right  and  wrong  of  human  actions?  When  we  go  of  Ufe* 
wrong  on  these  points  it  is  more  often  through  hasty  and  un- 
authorized inductions  than  from  any  other  cause.  "  I  do  not  like 
foreigners,"  says  one;  "  I  have  been  in  some  parts  of  the  Conti- 
nent where  the  people  were  very  brutal  and  dirty."  "  I  do  not 
think  University  examinations  any  true  test  of  power,"  says  an- 
other. "  I  knew  a  man  who  had  taken  high  honors  and  he  turn- 
ed out  a  complete  failure. "  ' '  Macaulay  was  very  inaccurate :  look 
at  the  mistakes  he  made  about  Penn."  Do  we  not  see  in  cases 
like  this  illustrations  of  what  Bacon  was  wont  to  call  the  induc- 
tio  per  enumerationem  simplicem,  the  generalization  too  wide  and. 
sweeping  for  the  facts;  the  inability  to  discern  the  difference 


368  Natural  Science. 


between  the  act  or  event  which  is  exceptional  and  that  which  is 
typical?  Do  we  not  feel  that  what  are  wanted  here  are  temper, 
reserve,  breadth  of  mind,  observation  wide  enough  to  compre- 
hend a  great  many  special  details  before  arriving  at  large  gene- 
ral assertions?  And  these  are  precisely  the  qualities  of  mind 
which  the  study  of  physical  science  generates  and  encourages. 
They  are  not  brought  into  special  activity  either  by  the  study 
of  language  or  by  the  study  of  mathematics,  valuable  as  both  of 
them  are  in  their  place.  For  the  logic  of  pure  synthesis  may 
show  you  how  to  detect  fallacies  in  drawing  conclusions  from 
general  truths;  it  is  by  the  inductive  process  that  men  must 
form  the  fixed  and  general  principles  on  which  they  reason  and 
act.  And  since  for  once  that  a  man  goes  wrong  through  rea- 
soning badly  on  given  data,  he  goes  wrong  ten  times  through 
accepting  data  which  are  unsound  and  unverified;  inductive 
reasoning  is  at  least  as  useful  a  part  of  mental  training  for  the 
duty  of  life,  as  the  deductive  process  to  which  the  name  logic 
was  once  exclusively  applied. 

Such  are  some  of  the  weightiest  reasons  for  desiring  to  see 
experimental  and  inductive  science  included  in  every  scheme 
of  liberal  education.  Other  reasons  might  easily  be  multiplied. 
"  Scientific  teaching,"  say  the  Public  School  Commissioners  in 
their  Report  of  1861,  "is  perhaps  the  best  corrective  for  that 
indolence  which  is  the  vice  of  half -awakened  minds,  and  which 
shrinks  from  any  exertion  that  is  not  like  an  effort  of  memory, 
purely  mechanical."  A  still  more  practical  and  obvious  reason 
was  urged  in  the  Report  of  the  Parliamentary  Committee  of 
1863,  "  A  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  science  would  tend  to 
promote  industrial  progress  by  stimulating  improvement,  by 
preventing  costly  and  unphilosophical  attempts  at  impossible 
inventions,  diminishing  waste,  and  obviating  in  a  great  measure 
ignorant  opposition  to  salutary  changes." 

Practical  and  commercial  considerations  like  these  must  of 
course  not  be  kept  out  of  view.  They  have  a  very  intimate 
bearing  on  the  education  of  primary  schools  and  on  the  wel- 
fare of  the  industrial  classes  generally.  One  hears  of  the 


Science  and  Skilled  Industry.  369 

want  of  knowledge  often  evinced  by  artisans;  of  the  trade 
rules    which    practically   forbid   a   man  to  put   The  bearing 

special    ability    or    enthusiasm    into    his    work,    of  scientific 

knowledge 
and  which  seem  designed  to  reduce  the  working   on  skilled 

power  of  the  intelligent  mechanic  to  the  level  of  trades- 
that  of  the  unintelligent.  Laments  are  often  heard  of  the 
decay  of  the  old  custom  of  apprenticeship,  by  which  a  master 
undertook  to  give  a  youth  systematic  instruction  in  the  art  and 
mystery  which  he  practised;  and  in  consequence  of  these  short- 
comings it  is  said  that  English  workmen  are  less  successful 
competitors  than  they  once  were  with  the  skilled  craftsmen  of 
other  nations.  The  gravity  of  these  facts  is  unquestionable, 
though  it  is  not  within  our  present  province  to  discuss  them, 
except  in  their  bearing  on  school  education.  Closely  connected 
with  every  form  of  handicraft  there  is  some  kind  of  elementary 
science — it  may  be  of  mechanics,  or  of  chemistry,  of  the  prop- 
erties of  matter,  or  the  nature  of  forces— which  explains  and 
justifies  the  rules  of  that  particular  handicraft  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  these  things  would  be  useful  to  the  workman,  not  only 
in  enabling  him  to  do  his  work  better,  but  also  in  calling  out 
his  sympathy  and  transforming  him  from  a  mechanical  drudge 
into  an  intelligent  worker.  It  is  a  humiliating  thing  to  see  a 
grown  man  content  to  employ  year  after  year  methods  and 
forces  which  he  does  not  care  to  understand.  No  one  who 
earns  his  living  under  such  conditions  can  get  any  enjoyment 
out  of  his  work.  Still  less  is  he  capable  of  discovering  new 
methods  by  which  in  his  own  special  department  future  work- 
ers may  be  helped  to  economize  time,  and  to  do  work  in  a  more 
artistic  and  thorough  manner. 

A  partial  remedy  for  this  evil  would  be  found  if  the  study  of 
natural  phenomena  were  included  in  some  form  in  the  course 
of  every  primary  school.  One  at  least  of  the  specific  subjects 
of  advanced  instruction  for  which  in  the  higher  classes  the  Edu- 
cation Department  makes  special  grants,  should  always  be  at- 
tempted in  those  classes.  That  subject  should  be  chosen  rather 
because  the  means  exist  for  teaching  it  well,  than  because  of  its 
24 


370  Natural  Science. 

supposed  relation  to  the  particular  calling  likely  to  be  followed 
by  the  scholar.  Any  one  branch  of  physical  science  will  serve 
to  stimulate  the  appetite  for  further  knowledge,  and  to  suggest 
right  methods  of  investigation  in  other  and  more  practical  direc- 
tions. But  when  the  one  branch  has  been  chosen,  care  should 
be  taken  that  it  shall  not  be  treated  as  a  new  and  special  ac- 
complishment—a purpureus  pannus  attached  by  way  of  orna- 
ment at  the  end  of  the  school-studies,  but  rather  as  an  organic 
part  of  those  studies,  in  preparation  for  which  a  well-arranged 
series  of  fact-lessons  shall  have  been  regularly  given  in  the  lower 
classes.  The  results  of  introducing  children  in  the  last  year  of 
their  school-life  to  the  study  of  entirely  new  subjects  and  to 
little  text-books  full  of  technical  terms,  have  proved  to  be  very 
unsatisfactory. 

But  the  further  measures  towards  the  true  preparation  for  the 
Technical  calling  of  a  skilled  workman  lie  outside  the  ordi- 
or  Trade  nary  domain  of  school  life.  It  is  in  special  techni- 
cal schools  that  the  craftsman  should  be  helped  to 
study  the  philosophy  of  his  own  trade.  Such  schools  under  the 
name  of  "  ficoles  d'Apprentis"  in  France,  or  of  Technical  and 
Trade  Schools  in  Switzerland  and  Germany,  have  long  existed 
and  done  excellent  work.  But  with  the  exception  of  the  Trade 
School  at  Bristol  founded  by  the  late  Canon  Moseley  and  the 
Trade  School  established  under  the  Endowed  Schools  Act  at 
Keighley,  very  few  such  institutions  have  thriven  here.  Now 
that  the  old  system  of  apprenticing  to  masters  has  died  out,  the 
best  substitute  for  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  establishment  of 
schools  which  shall  be  accessible  to  the  scholars  who  have  left 
the  primary  schools,  and  in  which  the  instruction  in  manual 
arts,  though  based  on  science,  shall  be  consciously  directed  to 
practical  ends. 

The  function  of  a  Trade  or  Technical  School  is  rather  indus- 
trial than  educational.  It  is  to  teach  science  in  its  application 
to  industry  and  with  a  special  view  to  the  needs  of  the  skilled 
artisan.  Its  course  should  include  applied  mechanics,  experi- 
mental physics,  electricity,  magnetism  and  heat,  chemistry, 


Technical  and  Trade  Schools. 


descriptive  geometry,  the  properties  of  matter,  measurement 
of  planes  and  solids,  and  the  principles  of  construction  gener- 
ally. There  should  be  a  workshop,  a  museum  of  tools  and 
implements,  a  chemical  and  physical  laboratory  in  which  the 
learners  can  perform  experiments  under  supervision;  and  the 
classes  should  be  so  arranged  and  divided  that  the  learner  may 
obtain  an  insight  into  the  scientific  basis  and  the  practical  rules 
of  the  particular  craft  which  he  intends  to  follow. 

There  should  be  no  difficulty  in  the  establishment  of  such 
schools  in  all  our  great  industrial  centres;  nor  even   The  best 

in  devising  a  liberal  system  of  inducements  by  way  modern  sub- 
J  .,JJ.    stituteforthe 

of  scholarships  or  otherwise  to  encourage  the  most   old  appren- 

promising  scholars  from  the  primary  school  to  ticesystem- 
devote  a  few  months  to  such  special  studies  before  entering  on 
the  business  of  their  lives.  Enormous  sums  have  been  be- 
queathed in  England  for  the  purpose  of  apprenticing  boys  to 
trades.  They  are  the  survivals  from  a  time  when  the  word 
"apprentice"  had  a  real  meaning,  and  when  the  provision  of 
such  funds  was  one  of  the  wisest  forms  of  benevolence.  But 
the  conditions  of  our  industrial  life  are  so  altered  that  these  large 
funds  have  ceased  'to  serve  their  intended  purpose,  and  are  too 
often  only  disguised  doles  of  a  very  mischievous  kind.  The 
disposition  of  such  funds  which  will  be  most  nearly  akin  to  the 
intentions  of  the  original  donors  is  obviously  the  establishment 
of  technical  schools  and  of  such  bursaries  or  scholarships  as 
may  facilitate  access  to  them. 

Here,  however,  we  revert  to  the  consideration  of  scientific 
teaching,  not  for  immediate  use  in  trade  or  com-   greets  of 
merce,  but  as  a  permanent  factor  in  a  liberal  edu-   physical 
cation.     And  from  this  point  of  view  it  matters   most  suited 
very  little  what  branch  of  such  science  you  select  *°  schools- 
—  whether    astronomy,   mechanics,    optics,   general    physics, 
botany  or  animal  physiology  —  so  long  as  you  keep  in  view  the 
purposes  which  have  to  be  served  in  teaching  them,  and  the 
kind  of  mental  discipline  which  rightly  taught  they  are  able  to 
give.     You  cannot  attempt  in  a  school-  course  to  teach  all,  or 


372  Natural  Science. 


indeed  half  of  these  things,  You  may  well  be  reconciled  to 
this  conclusion,  when  you  reflect  that  to  teach  any  one  of  them 
well,  so  as  really  to  kindle  the  inquisitive  and  observant  spirit, 
and  to  create  a  strong  interest  in  watching,  recording  and  co- 
ordinating the  facts  in  some  one  department  of  the  physical 
world,  is  to  do  much  to  stimulate  the  desire  for  further  acqui- 
sition of  the  same  kind  when  your  scholar  leaves  school;  and 
to  bring  into  play  one  set  of  faculties,  which  are  not  sufficiently 
exercised  hi  any  other  part  of  your  school-course. 

So  it  will  be  well  to  consider  in  what  department  of  science 
Grounds  of  you  or  any  one  of  your  assistants  feel  the  strongest 
tive'not "abso-  interest,  or  for  what  kind  of  teaching  you  have  the 
lute.  best  material  and  facilities  at  hand,  and  to  select 

that.  For  that  is  after  all  the  best  subject  for  you  to  teach. 
And  if  you  are  in  the  country,  or  dependent  on  the  services  of 
visiting  teachers,  and  Mr.  A.  undertakes  to  £ive  lectures  on 
Astronomy  and  Mr.  B.  on  Physiology,  I  would  have  you  de- 
cide between  these  rivals,  not  by  asking  which  of  the  two  sub- 
jects is  most  likely  to  prove  suitable  for  your  scholars,  but 
which  of  the  two  lecturers  is  the  abler  man,  the  person  of 
wider  general  culture,  the  more  skilful  and  enthusiastic  teacher, 
the  one  most  likely  to  kindle  in  your  pupil  the  wish  to  make 
further  researches  for  himself. 

Nor  do  I  think  it  at  all  desirable  in  selecting  a  subject  of 
Differentia-  experimental  science  for  school  purposes  to  be 
for^oys  and8  strongly  influenced  by  considering  whether  your 
girls.  pupils  are  boys  or  girls,  or  what  particular  uses 

they  may  happen  to  make  of  the  knowledge  hereafter  in  the 
business  of  life.  At  first  sight  it  seems  obvious  that  mechanics, 
for  example,  is  a  specially  masculine  study,  that  it  connects 
itself  with  many  of  the  occupations  which  boys  are  likely  to 
follow.  But,  after  all,  the  number  of  men  who  require  in  their 
business  or  profession  to  be  skilled  in  practical  mechanics  is 
Very  small;  and  the  true  reason  for  teaching  such  a  subject  at 
all  is  that  the  learner  may  know  something  of  the  properties 
of  matter,  the  nature  of  statical  and  dynamic  forces,  and  the 


Scientific  Terminology.  373 

way  in  which  knowledge  about  the  facts  of  the  visible  world 
ought  to  be  acquired.  And  all  these  things  have  just  as  close  a 
relation  to  the  needs  of  a  woman's  life  as  to  those  of  a  man. 
Again,  to  a  superficial  observer,  botany  seems  as  if  it  were 
specially  a  feminine  pursuit.  There  is  a  very  obvious  and 
natural  association  between  girls  and  flowers.  It  is  pleasant  to 
think  of  young  maidens  in  trim  gardens  culling  posies: 

"  The  rose  had  been  washed,  just  washed  in  a  shower, 
Which  Mary  to  Anna  conveyed." 

But  such  associations  do  not  at  all  prove  that  botany  is  a  spe- 
cially appropriate  study  for  young  ladies;  botany  considered  as 
a  science,  the  investigation  of  the  parts,  the  structure  and 
functions  of  plants.  There  is  nothing  exclusively  feminine  in 
it.  The  truth  is  that  mechanics  and  botany  are  both  equally 
fitted  in  the  case  of  either  boys  or  girls  to  serve  the  purposes 
which  experimental  science  is  meant  to  serve.  All  depends 
upon  the  way  in  which  the  subject  is  taught. 

One  very  effective  crux,  or  test,  by  which  the  difference 
between  a  good  and  a  bad  teacher  of  such  subjects  scientific  ter- 
is  to  be  detected,  is  to  be  found  in  the  use  he  makes  minology. 
of  scientific  terminology.  To  hear  some  teachers  of  Botany  or 
Chemistry  you  would  suppose  that  to  give  a  thing  a  hard  name 
was  to  explain  a  fact,  and  that  the  learning  how  to  label  things 
with  technical  words  was  the  learning  of  science.  The  note- 
books of  students  are  sometimes  found  to  contain  little  else  but 
nomenclature  and  lists  of  terms.  Such  terms  are  of  course  in- 
dispensable, but  their  true  value  is  to  fix  and  crystallize  facts 
and  distinctions  already  perceived  and  explained  in  the  first 
instance  without  their  help.  A  technical  term  is  a  sign  of  dis- 
tinction and  classification,  and  presupposes  that  you  have 
already  something  to  distinguish  and  to  classify. 

A  good  teacher  first  explains  the  principle  of  his  classification 
or  distinction  in  untechnical  phraseology;  then  shows  the  need 
of  some  word  or  phrase  to  describe  what  has  been  thus  seen, 
and  then  introduces  and  explains  his  scientific  term.  It  is  only 


374  Natural  Science. 


when  in  this  way  the  learner  comes  to  see  the  need  of  techni- 
How  and  ^  phraseology  before  he  is  invited  to  make  use 
when  to  of  it,  that  you  can  hope  to  make  the  terminology 

amp  oy  .  Q^  science  serve  its  proper  and  subordinate  pur- 
pose, and  to  be  a  means  rather  than  an  end.  Thus,  as  Mr. 
Henry  Sidgwick  says,  "  The  student  is  taught  not  only  how  to 
apply  a  classification  ready  made,  but  also  to  some  extent  how 
to  make  a  classification;  he  is  taught  to  deal  with  a  system 
where  the  classes  merge  by  fine  gradations  into  one  another, 
and  where  the  boundaries  are  often  hard  to  mark;  a  system  that 
is  progressive,  and  therefore  in  some  points  rudimentary,  shift- 
ing, liable  to  continual  modification;  and  along  with  the  im- 
mense value  of  a  carefully  framed  technical  phraseology  he  is 
also  taught  the  inevitable  inadequacy  of  such  a  phraseology  to 
represent  the  variety  of  nature."1 

Having  chosen  your  subject  you  will  do  well  in  this  depart- 
Practi  as  ment  *°  relj  n°t  wholly  on  book-work,  nor  too 
well  as  book-  largely  on  oral  exposition  and  demonstration,  but 
on  the  actual  work  of  the  pupils.  They  must  be 
brought  into  close  contact  with  the  facts  and  phenomena  of 
nature,  and  must  be  shown  how  to  handle  objects  and  investi- 
gate their  properties,  to  make  mistakes,  and  to  correct  them  for 
themselves.  It  is  becoming  more  generally  accepted  every  day 
by  good  teachers,  not  only  of  Chemistry  but  of  Physics,  that 
the  best  teaching  is  given  in  the  laboratory  rather  than  hi  the 
lecture-room.  It  is  not  merely  by  seeing  experiments  tried,  but 
by  trying  them,  that  the  properties  of  objects,  their  structure  and 
organization,  are  best  to  be  learned.  But  here  it  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  discipline  you  want  to  give  must  be  definite 
and  exact;  it  is  not  seeing  and  handling  only,  but  careful 
measurement  if  it  be  mechanics,  careful  observation  if  it  be 
Botany  or  Physiology,  and  whatever  it  be,  careful  notes  and 
recordation  of  the  results  of  each  experiment  as  soon  as  it  is 
made. 

1  Essays  on  a  Liberal  Education,  p.  195. 


Scholars  to  Make  Their  Own  Illustrations.    375 

As  far  as  you  can,  enlist  the  services  of  the  scholars  in  the 
manufacture,  collection  and  invention  of  the  ob-  scholars  to 
jccts  used  in  illustration  of  experimental  lessons,  bring  and 
Boxes  of  classified  models  and  specimens  which  own  illustra- 
are  prepared  by  manufacturers,  and  which  are  tions- 
often  very  costly,  are  far  less  effective  than  collections  of  ob- 
jects which  the  scholars  themselves  have  helped  to  form,  illus- 
trations of  the  flora  and  fauna  of  the  district,  its  geological 
formation,  or  manufacturing  processes.  In  two  of  the  best 
grammar  schools  which  I  have  visited,  and  in  which  the  great- 
est attention  is  paid  to  Natural  Science,  I  found  there  was  a 
carpenter's  shop  in  which  the  boys  themselves  made  their  own 
apparatus  for  the  illustration  of  mechanical  powers  and  for 
other  departments  of  science.  Within  certain  limits,  of  course, 
you  want  all  the  help  which  Prof.  Huxley  or  Balfour  Stewart 
or  Mr.  Lockyer  can  give  you  in  the  form  of  books,  or  which 
the  ingenious  producer  of  diagrams,  and  cabinets  of  selected 
models  and  objects,  can  invent  for  you.  But  these  things  are 
all  supplements  to  true  teaching  and  investigation,  not  substi- 
tutes for  them. 

After  all,  no  teaching  deserves  the  name  of  science  which  is 
a  teaching  of  facts  and  operations  only.  In  science  you  must 
have  facts,  but  you  must  also  have  ideas.  Unless  the  facts  are 
presented  in  such  a  way  as  to  group  themselves  together,  throw 
light  on  one  another,  and  reveal  some  general  law  of  correlation 
or  of  sequence  in  nature,  they  are  not  science  at  all.  It  is  per- 
haps a  misfortune  that  the  word  ' '  science"  has  become  popu- 
larly appropriated  to  a  particular  kind  of  information,  and  that 
astronomy,  physics,  and  a  group  of  like  subjects  should  have 
usurped  the  name  of  science.  But  as  I  have  already  reminded 
you,  the  word  "science"  does  not  refer  to  a  particular  class  of 
facts,  but  to  the  method  of  investigating  them.  It  does  not 
mean  knowledge,  but  knowledge  obtained  by  right  principles 
and  in  a  particular  way.  You  may  give  a  lesson  on  the  future 
tense  which  shall  be  in  the  highest  degree  scientific,  and  you 


376  Natural  Science. 


may  give  a  lesson  on  the  thermometer  or  on  the  satellites  of 
Jupiter  which  shall  not  be  science  at  all. 

We  cannot  attach  much  educational  value  to  lessons  on  fa- 
Lessons  on  miliar  objects  and  occurrences,  unless  they  are 

"  Common       given  with  a  distinctly  scientific  aim,  and  in  a  sci- 
things    not 

necessarily  entific  manner.  It  is  a  frequent  subject  of  com- 
plaint that  children  though  learning  a  great  many 
recondite  things  in  school  are  very  ignorant  of  things  out  of 
doors,  that  they  do  not  know,  e.g.,  the  difference  between  wheat 
and  barley,  or  what  are  the  names  of  common  birds  and  flow- 
ers. Even  in  a  book  otherwise  so  valuable  and  so  pregnant 
with  important  suggestions  as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  book  on 
Education  you  will  find  a  formidable  indictment,  running  in- 
deed throughout  all  his  pages,  against  schools  because  they  give 
book-learning  and  grammar  and  other  pedantries,  and  do  not 
show  the  scholar  how  to  get  a  living,  nor  to  preserve  their 
health,  or  what  will  be  their  future  duties  as  parents  and  as 
citizens. 

Such  complaints  often  originate  in  a  certain  confusion  of 
mind  as  to  what  is  the  proper  business  of  a  school.  Many 
things  are  very  well  worth  knowing,  which  it  is  not  the  busi- 
ness of  a  school  to  teach.  The  world  is  a  great  school  in  which 
we  are  to  be  learning  all  our  life,  and  he  who  brings  into  it 
quickened  faculties  will  learn  its  lessons  well  by  actual  experi- 
ence. But  a  child  does  not  come  to  school  to  be  told  that  a 
cow  has  four  legs,  that  fishes  swim,  or  that  bread  is  eatable, 
nutritious,  soft,  white  and  opaque.  Nor  does  he  come  there  to 
learn  the  special  business  of  a  farmer,  or  of  an  engineer,  or  of  a 
shoemaker.  He  is  there  to  learn  precisely  those  things  which 
could  not  be  so  well  learned  out  of  doors,  and  to  gain  that  sort 
of  capacity  and  awakening  which  will  enable  him  to  acquire 
readily  the  lessons  of  common  life  and  to  turn  them  to  the  best 
account. 

If  you  want  to  know  what  is  the  proper  province  of  the 
school,  consider  a  little  what  sort  of  lives  your  scholars  lead, 
and  the  sort  of  homes  they  come  from.  In  the  houses  of  the 


General  not  Special  Training.  377 

very  poor  there  is  probably  little  talk  going  on  such  as  would 
draw  the  attention  of  children  to  the  most  interesting  facts  of 
nature  and  of  daily  life.  So  in  schools  for  the  poor,  conversa- 
tional lessons  on  common  things,  on  birds  and  beasts,  and  on 
every-day  events,  are  very  useful  and  even  necessary.  If  chil- 
dren live  in  towns  and  seldom  see  green  fields,  occasional  les- 
sons on  the  crops,  the  aspects  of  nature  and  on  rural  life  are 
legitimate  parts  of  a  school-course.  But  if  children  come  from 
orderly  and  intelligent  homes,  in  which  they  daily  hear  sub- 
jects discussed  which  are  worth  talking  about,  and  if  they 
know  something  about  the  country,  lessons  of  this  kind  are  less 
necessary.  Bear  in  mind  that  anything  you  can  do  to  make  the 
knowledge  derived  from  daily  observation  more  exact  and  more 
useful,  is  worth  doing,  because  it  helps  to  make  the  future 
study  of  science  easier.  But  do  not  imagine  that  everything  of 
which  it  is  a  shame  for  a  child  to  be  ignorant,  is  necessarily 
your  business  to  teach.  The  right  rule  of  action  appears  to  me 
to  be  this.  It  is  no  concern  of  ours  to  teach  in  schools  that 
which  an  observant  and  intelligent  child  would  learn  out  of 
doors;  but  it  is  our  concern  so  to  teach  him  as  to  make  him  ob- 
servant and  intelligent. 

Nor  is  it  incumbent  on  teachers  to  anticipate  the  requirements 
of  future  life  by  giving  the  knowledge  suited  to  Trainin  n  t 
this  or  that  employment  or  profession.  To  do  that  special  but 
would  not  only  be  to  do  grave  injustice  to  the  gen< 
child  who  did  not  mean  to  adopt  the  particular  calling;  but  it 
would  injure  him  who  did,  by  prematurely  specializing  his 
knowledge  and  directing  his  thoughts  into  a  certain  money- 
making  groove.  The  duty  of  the  school  is  to  call  forth  such 
activities  and  to  give  such  knowledge  as  shall  be  available  alike 
in  all  conceivable  professions  or  employments;  and  it  can  do 
this  rather  by  considering  oftener  what  intellectual  wants  are 
human  and  universal,  than  what  is  the  way  in  which  any  par- 
ticular child  is  to  get  his  livelihood.  A  well-educated  English 
gentleman  does  not,  it  is  true,  know  so  much  about  a  steam-en- 
gine as  an  engineer,  nor  so  much  about  the  rotation  of  crops  as 


378  Natural  Science. 

a  farmer,  nor  so  much  about  book-keeping  as  a  city  clerk,  but 
he  knows  a  great  deal  more  about  all  three  than  either  of  them 
knows  about  the  other  two;  and  this  is  simply  because  his 
faculty  of  thinking  and  observing  has  been  cultivated  on  sub- 
jects chosen  for  their  fitness  as  instruments  of  development,  and 
not  on  subjects  chosen  with  the  narrow  purpose  of  turning  them 
to  immediate  practical  use. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  in  the  education  of  the  future 
Scientific  a  ^arffer  sPace  wul  t>e  occupied  than  heretofore  by 
teaching  of  the  discipline  of  the  inductive  sciences,  and  it  will 
Jre<  be  well  if  those  of  you  who  are  entering  the  pro- 
fession will  accept  this  as  inevitable,  and  qualify  yourselves 
both  to  meet  the  want  and  to  guide  a  movement  which  must 
for  good  or  evil  have  important  consequences.  It  is  for  you  to 
take  heed  that  the  newer  knowledge  shall  be  not  less  educative 
and  inspiriting  than  the  old,  and  that  the  word  "science"  shall 
not  degenerate  into  the  symbol  for  what  is  empirical  and  utili- 
tarian, nor  for  another  kind  of  memory  work.  He  who  sets 
himself  to  do  this  has  before  him  vast  fields  of  usefulness. 
"  Lift  up  your  eyes  and  look  upon  the  fields,  for  they  are  white 
already  to  the  harvest."  It  may  be  that  most  of  the  teaching 
to  be  gained  from  Latin  and  Greek  books  has  already  been  dis- 
covered; and  that  the  capacities  of  the  older  forms  of  academic 
discipline  have  already  been  taxed  to  the  uttermost.  But  in  the 
direction  we  have  been  considering  to-day,  the  prospect  open 
before  the  wistful  gazer  is  illimitable.  Who  can  measure  the 
possibilities  of  induction  and  experiment?  Who  knows  what 
large  generalizations  may  yet  be  possible  respecting  the  course 
and  constitution  of  nature,  the  tendency  of  history,  the  condi- 
tions of  being  and  knowing  on  this  earth,  generalizations  yet 
undreamed  of  either  by  the  physicist  or  the  philosopher?  And 
how  are  these  triumphs  to  be  attained  if  the  scientific  temper 
— the  spirit  of  inquiry,  of  caution,  of  reticence,  of  hope,  of  en- 
thusiasm, the  delight  in  the  perception  of  new  truth,  the  care- 
ful and  modest  estimate  of  the  worth  of  the  truth  when  discov- 
ered— is  not  fostered  by  our  system  of  education?  For  the 


The  Future  of  Scientific  Teaching.          379 

present  it  is  in  Natural  Science,  in  Physics,  in  Chemistry  or 
Botany,  that  we  recognize  the  region  in  which  these  qualities 
can  best  be  cultivated  and  displayed.  It  is  the  region  nearest 
to  us.  But  once  understood  and  explained  it  has  its  relations 
not  only  to  the  mundus  vuibilis,  but  to  the  whole  mundus  intel- 
ligibilis,  to  "  worlds  not  quickened  by  the  sun,"  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  history  of  man  in  the  ages  that  are  past,  to  the 
forecast  of  his  indefinite  improvement  in  the  ages  that  are  to 
come. 


380  The  Correlation  of  Studies. 


XV.     THE  COEEELATION  OF  STUDIES. 

WE  have  considered  in  succession  the  principal  instruments 
Review  of  which  are  in  a  teacher's  hands  for  forming  the 

thecurricu-     character  and  training  the  faculties  of  scholars. 

lum  of 

school  and  it  may  be  convenient  here  to  recall  them. 

There  are  (1)  the  teaching  of  mechanical  arts  as 
Reading  and  Writing,  and  generally  the  training  of  the  pupil 
to  action.  (2)  Instruction  in  useful  information  or  Fact-lore, 
with  a  view  to  give  the  pupil  knowledge.  Then  come  the 
studies  which  are  specially  intended  to  promote  thought;  (3) 
Language  teaching,  which  gives  command  over  the  instru- 
ment of  thought  and  of  expression;  (4)  Mathematics,  which 
gives  the  laws  of  ratiocination  from  generals  to  particulars; 
and  (5)  Inductive  science  which  gives  the  habit  of  observation, 
and  of  generalization  from  particular  experience. 

We  have  said  that  all  these  ingredients  in  a  school-course 
should  be  within  your  view  when  you  try  to  fashion  a  plan  of 
study  either  for  a  primary  or  secondary  school,  for  boys  or  for 
girls.  We  have  also  given  some  reasons  for  thinking  that  after 
a  time  both  the  first  and  the  second  kinds  of  teaching  become 
relatively  less  important,  and  that  in  the  main,  and  especially 
in  the  later  stages  of  your  course,  the  formative  and  disciplinal 
and  therefore  the  best  parts  of  school-training  will  be  found  to 
be  composed  of  the  last  three  elements.  But  we  may  now  go 
further  and  say  that  a  reasonable  regard  to  all  three  is  more 
consistent  with  thoroughness  in  teaching  than  the  limitation 
Multum  non  to  °ne-  The  maxim,  non  multa,  sed  multum,  has 
multa.  a  plausible  sound,  and  seems  to  furnish  a  justifica- 

cation  to  those  whose  ideal  is  to  secure  thorough  scholarship  in 


Multum  Non  Multa.  381 

one  department  rather  than  many-sided  culture.  But  in  truth 
a  pupil  who  leaves  school,  knowing  only  one  language  besides 
his  own,  and  having  learned  it  by  comparison  with  his  own, 
knowing  also  one  branch  of  mathematics  besides  arithmetic, 
and  one  branch  of  Natural  Science,  is  better  educated — better 
fitted  to  receive  all  the  subsequent  knowledge  which  the  ex- 
perience of  life  may  bring,  and  to  know  what  to  do  with  it, 
than  the  classical  scholar,  the  mathematician,  or  the  scientist 
pure  and  simple. 

The  good  teacher  seeks  to  give  to  each  class  of  faculty  a  fair 
chance  of  development.  He  knows  that  it  is  impossible  to  de- 
termine with  certainty  very  early  in  a  scholar's  career  what  is 
the  special  department  in  which  he  is  likely  to  achieve  excel- 
lence. Nor  is  it  at  all  necessary  that  you  should  know  this  too 
early.  It  has  been  often  said  that  the  ideally  educated  man  is 
one  who  knows  something  of  many  subjects,  and  a  good  deal 
of  one  subject.  You  are  safe  therefore  in  fashioning  a  some- 
what comprehensive  course  so  long  as  there  is  unity  in  it;  and 
in  making  certain  elements  compulsory  on  all  scholars,  re- 
serving alternatives  and  voluntary  choice  to  the  later  stages  of 
the  school-life.  You  thus  cast  your  net  over  a  wider  area,  and 
prepare  yourself  to  welcome  a  greater  variety  of  abilities  and 
aptitudes.  You  leave  fewer  minds  to  stagnate  in  apathy  and 
indifference,  and  you  discourage  the  tendency  to  attach  an 
exaggerated  value  to  particular  subjects,  and  to  indulge  in  the 
idle  boast  of  learned  ignorance.  And  if  this  be  done,  then 
when  the  time  comes  for  specializing,  and  your  pupil  comes 
within  sight  of  the  University  or  of  the  business  of  life,  you 
will  be  in  a  better  position  to  determine  in  what  direction  and 
for  what  reason  he  will  do  well  to  direct  his  energies  in  a  par- 
ticular channel.  And  in  helping  the  pupil  to  decide  these 
questions  it  is  well  to  have  regard  (1)  to  the  probability  that 
the  study  thus  selected  will  be  thoroughly  assimilated,  and  will 
in  his  case  be  carried  on  far  enough  to  become  a  factor  of 
special  value  in  his  intellectual  life,  and  (2)  to  the  chance  of  his 
putting  forth  real  effort  in  its  pursuit.  For  costeris  paribus, 


382  The  Correlation  of  Studies. 

that  study  is  the  best  for  each  of  us  which  calls  out  the  largest 
amount  of  spontaneous  exertion,  and  in  which  we  are  not  re- 
cipients merely,  however  diligent,  but  willing  agents. 

Although  the  threefold  division  of  intellectual  culture  to 
Time  not  al-  which  we  have  so  oiten  referred,  should  be  clearly 

ways  proper-  before  the  mind  of  a  teacher,  and  dominate  his 
tionedtothe  .  .' 

importance  plans,  and  though  each  division  may  well  claim 
rf  subjects.  an  equa]  suare  in  njs  attention,  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  time  available  in  a  school-course  shall  be  given  to  these 
departments  in  equal  proportions.  It  takes  longer  and  harder 
work  to  achieve  the  desired  intellectual  result  in  some  subjects 
than  in  others.  A  given  amount  of  effort  tells  sooner  in  the 
early  stages  of  science-teaching  than  in  those  of  language.  You 
may  make  even  a  mathematical  truth  clear  and  effective  for 
practical  purposes  in  a  shorter  lesson  than  would  be  needed 
for  instruction  of  equal  value  on  a  difficult  point  in  grammar. 
And  hence  it  may  be  roughly  said  that  if  you  have  say  20  hours 
of  a  week  available  for  the  serious  study  of  disciplinal  subjects, 
it  is  not  unreasonable  to  give  nearly  half  of  these  to  language 
and  literature  and  subsidiary  exercises,  and  of  the  remaining 
half,  rather  the  larger  portion  to  mathematics,  and  the  smaller 
to  experimental  science. 

These  considerations  may  help  us  when  we  find  ourselves 
The  contend-  confronted  with  the  great  difficulty  of  modern 
too  many8  °f  teachers— the  claims  of  too  many  multifarious 
subjects.  subjects.  The  right  rule  of  action  appears  to  be 
this.  As  each  new  subject  demands  attention,  ask  yourself  to 
what  department  of  school-work  it  belongs,  and  what  present 
study  in  that  department  can  be  safely  dropped,  or  rather  ab- 
sorbed and  superseded  by  the  higher  or  new  study.  Your 
scheme  of  study  will  not  probably  include  more  than  two  lan- 
guages, say  French  and  Latin,  besides  your  own.  Well,  if  it 
becomes  necessary  to  add  German  or  Greek,  that  is  a  reason 
for  setting  aside  for  the  present  all  special  exercises  in  English, 
except  those  which  arise  incidentally  out  of  the  translation  and 
treatment  of  other  languages.  If  you  want  to  begin  a  course 


Claims  of  Too  Many  Subjects.  383 

of  logic  consider  that  this  is  the  cognate  subject  to  mathe- 
matics; that  it  addresses  itself  to  the  same  side  of  the  mind,  so 
to  speak;  and  take  the  time  for  it  out  of  that  which  would  have 
been  given  to  some  branch  of  mathematics.  If  you  feel  dis- 
posed to  go  through  a  course  of  lessons  on  Political  Economy, 
or  the  elements  of  Political  Philosophy,  such  a  course  may 
very  wisely  supersede  for  a  time  the  formal  study  of  History, 
with  which  it  is  closely  related.  And  as  to  the  subjects  of 
Physical  Science,  it  is  never  wise  to  have  more  than  two  in 
hand  at  a  time,  and  the  introduction  of  any  one  new  branch  of 
Physics  or  Chemistry  may  fitly  take  the  place  of  another.  The 
two  principles  to  be  kept  in  view  are  these:  Do  not  permit 
your  day's  time-table  to  be  cut  up  into  fragments  so  small  as  to 
distract  the  attention  of  your  scholars,  and  to  interfere  with 
due  continuity  of  the  studies;  and  take  care  that  the  general 
proportion  of  time  and  effort  given  to  each  of  the  formative  or 
disciplinal  branches  of  study  shall  not  be  substantially  dis- 
tiirbed.  We  have  before  insisted  on  the  need  for  unity  of  pur- 
pose throughout  the  school-course  and  a  regulated  harmony  in 
all  its  parts.  This  harmony  is  not  disturbed  when  the  scholar 
quits  Arithmetic  for  Algebra,  or  Geometry  for  Trigonometry, 
or  Botany  for  Geology,  or  Writing  for  Drawing;  because  in 
each  case  the  new  study  is  homogeneous  with  the  old,  and  all 
that  has  been  learned  before  is  made  available  for  new  pur- 
poses. So  long  as  a  new  subject  is  a  fair  intellectual  equiva- 
lent for  its  predecessor,  calls  into  action  the  same  sort  of  force 
and  utilizes  former  knowledge,  we  need  not  be  afraid  of  intro- 
ducing it,  or  of  abandoning  for  a  time  the  pursuit  of  some 
others  which  we  value. 

Even  if  we  do  not  wholly  succeed  in  this  endeavor,  it  will  be 
consoling  to  reflect  that,  after  all,  mental  develop-   The  converti- 
ment,  though  multiform  in  its  manifestations,  is   tactual"1" 
at  bottom  one  process,  and  that  mental  powers  are   forces, 
not  so  sharply  divisible  into  independent  faculties  as  it  would 
seem  to  us  when  we  read  books  of  psychology.    In  the  physi- 
cal sciences  there  are  the  doctrines  of  the  conservation  of  energy 


384  The  Correlation  of  Studies. 

and  also  of  the  convertibility  of  forces.  You  know  that  heat 
is  a  mode  of  motion,  that  when  you  can  generate  one  kind  of 
force — say  electricity — it  is  capable  of  transmutation  into  light 
or  some  other  kind  of  energy,  and  that  radiant  energy  itself  is 
said  to  be  convertible  into  sound.  And  there  is  a  similar  law 
of  convertibility  in  intellectual  forces.  Every  piece  of  knowl- 
edge honestly  acquired  turns  out  to  have  unexpected  relations 
with  much  other  knowledge.  Every  kind  of  mental  power, 
once  evoked  and  applied  to  a  worthy  purpose,  becomes  avail- 
able for  other  purposes,  and  is  capable  of  being  transformed 
into  power  of  another  kind.  Only  take  care  that  what  you 
evoke  is  really  power,  that  8vva/.u$  in  your  hands  becomes 
true  ivepyeia,  that  the  subject  you  teach  is  so  taught  as  to 
stimulate,  to  broaden,  to  reach  out  into  regions  beyond  itself; 
and  then  the  question  of  the  number  of  subjects  nominally  in- 
cluded in  your  curriculum  becomes  of  very  small  importance. 
It  is  only  the  dull  and  soulless  mnemonic  after  all  which  is 
utterly  barren  of  result.  Compare  an  artist  or  musician  who 
is  a  mere  artist  or  musician  with  one  who  also  brings  to  his 
work  knowledge  of  other  things,  intellectual  breadth  and  sym- 
pathy. All  that  the  one  has  been  helped  to  know  and  to  feel 
in  other  regions  than  art  becomes  transfigured  and  absorbed 
into  his  work,  and  his  work  is  more  precious  to  the  world  in 
consequence. 

Should  any  attempt  be  made  to  adapt  training  and  teaching 
Adaptation       *°  ^e  special  tastes  and  capacities  of  children? 

of  the  School  This  is  a  grave  question,  and  one  which  must  often 
course  to  mdi- 

vidual  wants  have  occurred  to  you.  There  are  those  who  com- 
and  aptitudes.  piaui)  not  -without  seeming  justice,  that  our  plans 
treat  all  children  alike,  and  do  not  sumciently  recognize  in- 
herent differences  both  in  the  amount  of  power  and  in  the 
special  direction  of  that  power.  George  Combe  spent  his  life 
in  advocating  this  doctrine,  and  he  taught  that  the  true  key  to 
the  idiosyncrasies  of  children,  and  therefore  to  the  right  and 
philosophic  treatment  of  various  natures,  was  to  be  found  in 
the  study  of  the  cranium  and  in  what  he  called  the  science  of 


Religious  and  Moral  Teaching.  385 

Phrenology.  He  was  a  man  of  very  clear  purpose  and  strong 
will,  and  had  the  art  of  inspiring  his  disciples  with  much  en- 
thusiasm and  admiration.  But  he  never  got  so  far  as  to  induce 
one  of  them  seriously  to  attempt  the  classification  and  teaching 
of  a  school  on  his  principles,  and  the  experiment  yet  remains 
untried.  There  are  others  who  would  urge  you  to  study  the 
temperaments  of  children,  and  to  give  to  the  lymphatic,  the 
sanguine,  and  the  nervous  scholars  respectively,  special  and 
appropriate  discipline.  But  I  cannot  counsel  you  to  concern 
yourself  much  with  such  speculations.  For  there  is  first  the 
danger  that  perhaps  your  diagnosis  of  the  case  may  be  wrong; 
and  then  there  is  the  further  danger  that  even  if  it  be  right  the 
treatment  you  adopt  may  not  be  after  all  the  best.  It  is  not 
yet  proved  either  on  the  one  hand  that  the  child  with  a  particu- 
lar liking  or  talent  should  have  that  tendency  specially  culti- 
vated in  his  education,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it  is  always 
wise  to  attempt  to  restore  the  balance  by  working  at  the  de- 
velopment of  those  faculties  in  which  he  is  deficient.  By  all 
means  watch  your  pupils:  see  if  experience  shows  any  particu- 
lar form  of  intellectual  exercise  to  be  burdensome  or  injurious 
to  them;  give  prompt  relief  to  those  who  seem  in  the  smallest 
degree  to  be  disheartened  or  overwrought;  and  having  done 
this,  devise  the  best  course  you  can  in  the  interest  of  the  aver- 
age scholar,  and  make  all  your  pupils  conform  to  it.  Do  you 
not  in  looking  back  on  your  own  mental  life  feel  thankful  that 
you  were  forced  to  learn  many  things  for  which  at  the  time 
you  had  no  special  appetite,  and  which  a  scientific  analyst  of 
your  yet  unformed  character  and  tastes  might  have  declared  to 
be  unsuited  to  you? 

In  all  this,  I  have  said  nothing  of  religious  and  moral 
teaching.    But  this  is  not  because  I  disregard  it,   Reji£rjous  an(j 
but  simply  because  it  is  impossible  to  co-ordinate  moral  in- 
it  with  any  of  the  subjects  of  which  we  have   8 
spoken.     To  say,  for  example,  that  so  many  hours  should  be 
given  to  grammar,  so  many  to  science,  and  so  many  to  Biblical 
or  moral  lessons,  would  be  difficult,  and  would  not,  whatever 
25 


386  The  Correlation  of  Studies. 

the  proportion  of  time  assigned,  rightly  represent  our  estimate 
of  the  relative  importance  of  this  last  element.  For  "Con- 
duct," as  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  says,  "is  three  fourths  of  life," 
and  that  a  human  being  should  do  what  is  right  and  be  ani- 
mated by  noble  motives  in  doing  it,  is,  as  we  must  all  feel, 
more  important  than  that  he  should  possess  any  given  piece 
of  useful  information,  or  should  have  had  his  understanding 
trained  in  a  particular  way.  But  this  does  not  at  all  imply 
that  you  should  give  in  a  school  lessons  on  ethics  and  religion 
corresponding  in  length  or  number  to  your  sense  of  the  impor- 
tance of  those  subjects. 

Many  of  the  best  teachers  feel  that  right  moral  guidance  can 
Two  views  of  onty  be  nac*  by  direct  didactic  teaching, by  the  learn- 

the  functions  ing  of  formularies  of  faith  and  duty,  and  by  lessons 
of  a  school  .  J  J 

in  this  consciously  directed  to  the  enforcement  of  theologi- 

cal truths.  Other  teachers,  with  a  no  less  profound 
sense  of  the  importance  of  these  things,  have  grave  doubts  as 
to  the  usefulness  of  school  lessons  on  such  subjects.  They 
distrust  the  practice  of  teaching  children  in  the  sphere  of  religion 
to  do  what  they  would  not  be  asked  to  do  in  any  other  depart- 
ment of  then:  studies — to  affirm  what  they  do  not  understand. 
They  dread,  above  all  things,  exacting  from  a  young  child  vows 
or  professions  of  religion  which  cannot  possibly  correspond  to 
his  actual  convictions_and  experience.  Such  teachers  would  be 
disposed  to  rely  more  on  the  habits  which  were  formed  in  school, 
on  the  spirit  in  which  its  work  was  done,  and  on  the  sort  of 
moral  and  religious  principles  which  may  be  learned  indirectly 
in  a  high-toned  school,  and  are  seen  to  penetrate  all  its  corpor- 
ate life,  than  on  formal  lessons  in  divinity.  I  shall  not  attempt 
here  to  pronounce  an  opinion  on  a  controversial  question  which 
divides  some  of  the  most  religious  and  high-minded  teachers. 
Two  considerations  only  shall  be  offered  on  this  point. 

The  first  of  them  is  that  the  expediency  of  giving  direct  reli- 
gious instruction  depends  a  good  deal  on  the  character  of  your 
school,  and  on  the  life  your  scholars  lead  out  of  it.  In  a 
boarding-school,  where  you  have  the  whole  control  of  the 


Religious  and  Moral  Teaching.  387 

scholars'  leisure  and  are  in  loco  parentis,  you  will  feel  bound 
to  provide  for  the  religious  instruction  and  worship,  both  on 
Sunday  and  on  other  days,  which  are  usual  in  a  well-constituted 
Christian  family.  And  if  you  have  the  supervision  of  a  Primary 
school,  you  cannot  leave  out  of  view  the  fact  that  many  of  the 
children  come  from  homes  in  which  the  name  of  God  is  seldom 
heard,  and  in  which  the  parents  feel  it  no  part  of  their  duty  to 
convey  religious  instruction  to  their  children  or  to  accompany 
them  on  Sunday  to  the  house  of  worship.  You  will  feel  here 
that  the  only  glimpse  your  scholar  will  have  of  the  unseen 
world,  the  only  teaching  about  his  relation  to  a  Divine  Father, 
and  the  only  introduction  even  to  the  morality  and  the  poetry 
of  the  New  Testament,  are  to  be  had  in  the  school.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  your  school  is  a  day-school  of  a  higher  kind,  and  the 
scholars  have  parents  who  are  accustomed  to  concern  themselves 
about  the  religious  training  and  conduct  of  their  children ;  or 
even  who  deliberately  object  to  the  inculcation  of  dogma  at  so 
early  an  age,  your  responsibility  is  greatly  lessened.  There  is 
in  such  a  case  no  moral  obligation  on  a  master,  unless  he  is  re- 
quired to  do  so  by  the  governors,  to  make  the  school  a  propa- 
ganda for  his  own  or  any  other  distinctive  religious  tenets.  The 
principle  of  a  "  conscience  clause,"  I  may  remind  you,  is  not 
only  recognized  in  all  recent  University  legislation;  it  is  em- 
bodied in  the  Endowed  Schools  Act,  in  the  Elementary  Educa- 
tion Act,  and  is  in  fact  enforced  on  all  schools  to  which  public 
legislation  has  yet  been  extended  in  this  country;  it  is  founded 
on  essential  justice,  and  deserves  to  be  yet  more  widely  applied. 
It  has  certainly  not  proved  in  any  way  incompatible  with  the 
just  influence  of  Christian  teachers  nor  with  the  maintenance  of 
the  religious  character  of  English  schools. 

Nor  must  we  too  hastily  conclude  that  a  school  is  a  godless 
school,  because  for  any  reason  no  direct  didactic  religious  lessons 
are  given  in  it.  Some  of  the  weightiest  lessons  which  we  can 
learn  in  regard  to  the  formation  of  our  own  character  are  not 
learned  by  way  of  direct  instruction,  but  they  come  to  us  in- 
cidentally in  seeing  how  religious  principle  shapes  the  conduct 


388  The  Correlation  of  Studies. 

of  others,  and  what  it  is  worth  when  tested  by  the  exigencies 
of  life.  The  ordinary  history  of  a  school  presents  many  such 
exigencies — many  opportunities  for  effective  moral  teaching. 
Cases  of  misconduct  arise  which  if  dealt  with  calmly,  seriously, 
and  by  a  reference  to  a  true  and  high  standard  of  duty,  have  a 
very  great  effect  upon  the  tone  and  feeling  of  the  school.  You 
will  not  be  satisfied  always  to  employ  mechanical  remedies 
for  moral  evils;  but  will  direct  attention  from  time  to  time  to 
principles  of  conduct  which  have  been  illustrated  or  violated 
within  the  knowledge  of  your  scholars. 

When  such  incidents  occur  in  the  school  life,  they  should  be 
The  moral  les-  utilized-  But  they  will  occur  rarely,  and  they 
sons  taught  wm  be  all  the  more  impressive  if  they  are  rare, 
discipline  It  is  not  in  the  explicit  didactic  form  in  which  older 
of  a  school  people  expect  to  see  ethical  truths  and  maxims 
expressed,  that  moral  duties  can  be  best  made  intelligible  to  a 
young  scholar,  and  binding  on  his  conscience.  Much  more 
effective  work  is  done  in  his  case  by  taking  care  that  his  sur- 
roundings are  right  and  healthful;  by  watching  carefully, 
though  without  actually  removing  them,  such  temptations  to 
evil  as  come  within  his  reach,  and  by  seeing  that  his  daily  life 
gives  due  scope  and  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  boyish  vir 
tues.  And  the  schoolmaster,  who  has  a  high  sense  of  responsi- 
bility in  this  matter,  will  often  ask  himself  "  Are  the  arrange- 
ments of  my  school  calculated  to  promote  truthfulness,  manli- 
ness, the  sense  of  honor,  the  feeling  of  moral  obligation?  Are 
the  relations  of  my  pupil  to  me  such  as  to  encourage  him  to  treat 
me  with  confidence?  Do  they  furnish  him  with  occasions  of 
being  helpful  to  others?  Does  he  take  advantage  of  such  occa- 
sions? Is  he  being  trained  in  my  school  not  merely  to  obey 
when  the  pressure  of  authority  is  upon  him,  but  also  to  use 
freedom  aright  when  he  is  a  law  unto  himself?  Is  the  virtue  of 
courage  taught  not  as  an  abstract  lesson,  but  silently  in  the  dis- 
cipline and  habits  of  the  school  ?"  For  we  may  not  forget  what 
Aristotle  has  taught  us.  that  courage  is,  in  one  sense,  the  first  of 
all  virtues,  because  it  is  the  one  virtue  which  makes  all  others 


Moral  Teaching  Latent  in  School-lessons.    389 

possible,  without  which,  indeed,  many  others  are  well-nigh  im- 
possible. For  all  untruth  is  traceable  to  cowardice.  All  idle- 
ness, desultory  reading,  extravagance,  self-indulgence  —  nearly 
all  in  fact  of  the  faults  which  you  most  desire  that  schoolboys 
should  avoid,  —  come  from  lack  of  boldness  to  say  "  No"  when 
the  temptation  comes,  and  to  make  a  resolute  effort  to  do  what 
is  known  to  be  right.  Trace  out  the  consequence  of  a  nerveless, 
soft  and  too  indulgent  discipline,  when  it  comes  to  bear  fruit  in 
after-life.  Consider  what  a  man  is  likely  to  be  worth  who  has 
not  resolution  enough  to  resist  the  public  opinion  of  his  class, 
to  refuse  to  pronounce  the  Shibboleths  of  his  party,  to  abstain 
from  display  and  expense  which  he  cannot  afford,  to  emanci- 
pate himself  from  usages  which  he  feels  to  be  narrow  and  self- 
ish, in  his  profession  or  trade.  And  when  you  think  of  these 
things  you  will  see  that  in  the  microcosm  of  a  good  school  there 
should  be  real  training  in  courage  and  self-restraint,  and  that 
such  training  is  often  as  effective  when  it  is  connected  with  the 
actual  difficulties  and  temptations  of  school  life,  as  when  it 
forms  part  of  a  formal  scheme  of  ethical  or  theological  teaching. 
Further,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  every  one  of  the  depart- 
ments of  secular  teaching  with  which  we  deal  in 


schools  carries  with  it  its  own  special  ethical  les-   teaching  em- 

,    ,  ,    A,          .        ,    ,.  ,  bodied  in 

sons,  holds  them  in  solution,  so  to  speak,  and  con-    School-les- 

cerns  itself  in  its  own  way  with  some  important  as-  sons> 
pect  of  human  character.  "We  saw  in  considering  the  practice  of 
simple  arts,  and  in  all  the  mechanical  drill  which  they  involve, 
how  the  scholar  learned  obedience,  exact  attention  to  rule,  self- 
subjugation,  deference  for  others,  and  the  habit  of  losing  sight  of 
his  individual  claims,  while  Avorking  towards  the  attainment  of 
results  in  which  others  besides  himself  had  a  common  interest. 
The  study  of  Language  too,  when  rightly  conducted,  is  essen- 
tially a  discipline  in  veracity,  in  careful  statement,  in  abstinence 
from  exaggeration,  in  thinking  before  we  speak.  Chaucer's 
host  says: 

"  Eke  Plato  sayeth,  whoso  can  him  rede 
The  wordes  moste  ben  cosin  to  the  dede;" 


390  The,  Correlation  of  Studies. 

and  George  Herbert, 

"  Lie  not,  but  let  thy  heart  be  true  to  God, 
Thy  mouth  to  it,  thy  actions  to  them  both." 

And  the  ideal  in  the  mind  of  both  poets  you  see  is  the  perfect 
correspondence  in  a  man's  character  between  the  thing  thought, 
the  thing  done,  and  the  thing  said.  There  is  no  truer  test  of  a 
consistent  and  noble  type  of  life  than  this;  and  there  is  no  intel- 
lectual training  better  fitted  to  develop  such  a  type,  than  wise 
discipline  in  the  use  and  meaning  of  language.  In  like  manner 
Mathematical  science  has  its  own  special  moral  lessons,  none 
the  less  real  because  they  are  learned  by  implication  only  and 
are  not  formulated  in  precepts.  It  is  a  discipline  in  exactness, 
in  perfect  honesty,  in  patience.  And  of  natural  science  and  of 
all  the  studies  pursued  by  the  method  of  induction,  have  we  not 
seen  that  they  are  a  check  on  rash  and  hasty  conclusions,  that 
they  teach  fairness,  breadth  of  mind,  reticence,  suspension  of 
our  judgment  while  the  data  for  forming  it  are  insufficient;  and 
that  these  qualities  are  very  necessary  in  the  right  conduct  of 
life?  As  to  History;  it  is  full  of  indirect  but  very  effective 
moral  teaching.  It  is  not  only  as  Bolingbroke  called  it  "  Phi- 
losophy teaching  by  examples,"  but  it  is  Morality  teaching  by 
examples.  What,  for  instance,  can  be  of  higher  value  than  the 
training  it  gives  in  the  estimation  of  human  character?  "We  are 
called  on  to  form  judgments  of  men  in  very  difficult  positions, 
and  we  find  a  flippant  and  confident  historian  dismissing  them 
with  a  single  sentence,  giving  his  estimate  on  one  or  two  inci- 
dents in  their  lives,  or  summing  up  their  characters  in  an  epi- 
gram. Well,  we  look  into  ourselves,  and  we  think  of  the  people 
by  whom  we  are  surrounded,  and  we  know  that  neither  their 
characters,  nor  our  own,  admit  of  being  fairly  summed  up  in 
an  epigram  or  a  single  sentence,  that  he  who  would  know  us 
thoroughly  and  judge  us  fairly,  should  know  something  of  our 
powers  and  opportunities,  our  surroundings  and  temptations, 
and  of  the  circumstances  in  which  our  opinions  have  been 
formed.  History  may  thus  become  to  those  who  study  it  a 


Indirect  Ethical  Teaching.  391 

lesson  in  charity,  and  a  training  whereby  we  may  learn  how  to 
form  right  estimates  of  each  other.  It  is  essentially  the  study 
which  best  helps  the  student  to  conceive  large  thoughts,  "to  look 
before  and  after,"  and  to  appreciate,  as  Mr.  J.  M.  Wilson  has 
wisely  said,  the  forces  of  genius,  of  valor,  of  wisdom,  and  of  en- 
thusiasm by  which  the  world  is  moved. 

There  is  yet  another  sense  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  over- 
value the  moral  teaching  of  History.  One  looks  back  over  the 
annals  of  our  race,  and  recalls  the  past.  The  echoes  of  far-off 
contests  and  of  ancient  heroisms  come  down  to  us  through  the 
ages.  "  We  have  heard  with  our  ears,  and  our  fathers  have  de- 
clared to  us  the  noble  works  which  God  did  in  their  days,  and 
in  the  old  time  before  them."  We  hear  of  Philip  Sidney,  thirsty 
and  dying  on  the  field  of  Zutphen,  refusing  the  cup  of  water 
and  giving  it  to  a  poor  soldier  with  the  words,  "  Thy  necessity 
is  greater  than  mine."  We  recall  the  image  of  the  saintly  Bishop 
Ken,  on  the  eve  of  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  as  he  stood 
with  six  other  bishops  before  James  in  the  presence-chamber  at 
Whitehall,  "  We  have  two  duties  to  perform,  our  duty  to  God, 
and  our  duty  to  our  king.  We  honor  your  Majesty,  but  we 
must  fear  God."  Or  we  think  of  Wolfe  the  young  soldier  on 
the  heights  of  Quebec,  spent  and  wounded  after  a  hard  fight, 
aroused  by  the  cry,  "  They  run."  "  Who  run?"  "  The  French." 
"  Then  I  die  happy."  And  as  we  realize  these  scenes,  we  know 
that  this  world  is  a  better  world  for  us  to  live  in  because 
such  deeds  have  been  done  in  it;  we  see  all  the  more  clearly 
what  human  duty  and  true  human  greatness  are,  and  we  are 
helped  by  such  examples  to  form  a  nobler  ideal  of  the  possibili- 
ties even  of  our  own  prosaic  and  laborious  life. 

And  thus  it  is  quite  possible  that  in  a  school  in  which  few 
formal  lessons  are  given  on  morals  and  conduct,  indirect  mor- 
the  sense  of  a  higher  presence,  and  the  habitual  ^  teaching, 
recognition  of  the  highest  motives  of  action  may  suffuse  the 
whole  of  the  teaching,  or  run  through  its  entire  texture  like 
a  golden  thread.  You  have  many  objects  in  view  which 
cannot  be  set  down  and  provided  for  in  a  time-table.  You 


392  27ie  Correlation  of  Studies. 

want  most  of  all  to  exert  a  right  influence  over  the  character, 
and  you  want  too  to  gratify  the  legitimate  demands  of  a 
child's  fancy,  and  to  furnish  food  for  his  imagination.  You 
want  to  regard  him  from  the  first  as  a  being  not  only  with 
duties  to  fulfil  and  a  livelihood  to  win,  but  with  a  life  to  live, 
with  tastes  to  be  gratified,  with  leisure  to  be  worthily  filled. 
And  hence  you  will  never  satisfy  yourself  by  putting  before 
him  the  usefulness  of  knowledge,  the  way  in  which  it  adds 
to  the  value  of  its  possessor  in  the  market  of  the  world, 
the  examinations  it  may  help  him  to  pass,  the  fortune  or  the 
credit  it  may  help  him  to  win;  but  you  will  rather  try  to  help 
him  perceive  the  beauty  and  worth  of  an  intelligent  life  for  its 
own  sake.  It  has  been  profoundly  said  by  Bacon  that  the  light  of 
heaven  is  not  only  precious  to  see  by,  but  to  see.  And  of  know- 
ledge too,  it  may  be  truly  said  that  it  is  not  only  good  to  show 
us  the  way,  and  to  help  us  to  solve  difficulties.  It  is  also  good, 
even  if  we  solve  no  difficulties  with  it,  and  if  we  turn  it  to  no 
definite  commercial  or  other  account,  good  if  we  only  delight 
in  its  radiance  and  feel  its  warmth,  and  have  our  souls  enriched 
and  gladdened  by  it.  "  Truly  the  light  is  sweet,  and  a  pleasant 
thing  it  is  for  a  man  to  behold  the  sun."  And  a  school  is  a  very 
unsatisfactory  institution,  and  fails  to  fulfil  its  highest  function, 
if,  however  it  may  succeed  in  imparting  knowledge,  it  does  not 
also  succeed  in  imparting  a  thirst  for  more,  or  at  least  a  dawning 
sense  of  the  inward  need  for  mental  and  spiritual  cultivation, 
whether  such  cultivation  bears  any  visible  relation  to  success  in 
life  or  not 

And  so  the  ideally  perfect  school  is  not  only  characterized,  as 
we  have  said  hi  former  lectures,  by  strict  order,  by  right  methods 
of  instruction,  and  by  vigorous  intellectual  activity;  it  should 
also  be  pervaded  through  and  through  by  high  purpose,  by  the 
spirit  of  work,  by  a  solemn  sense  of  duty,  and  by  the  love  of 
truth.  Does  this  seem  to  some  of  you  an  unattainable  ideal  > 
The  first  condition  of  its  being  attainable  is  that  you  shall  be 
lieve  it  worthy  of  attainment.  Look  back  upon  your  own 


The  Schoolmaster's   Vocation.  393 

school-days,  recall  the  memories  you  have  of  them.  Look  for- 
ward into  the  life  of  your  pupils,  and  ask  what  recollections 
they  will  have — what  recollections  you  would  like  them  to  have, 
of  you  and  of  your  teaching.  Those  recollections  will  not  all  be 
of  the  lessons  you  have  intentionally  given.  They  will  depend 
much  upon  the  spirit  in  which  your  work  was  done,  on  the  mo- 
tives which  were  seen  to  actuate  you,  and  on  the  degree  in  which 
you  were  known  to  love  that  knowledge  of  which  for  the  time 
you  were  in  the  scholars'  eyes  the  chief  representative. 

You  remember  well  who  it  was  who  once  stood  by  the  lake 
of  Genesareth  and  beckoned  Andrew  and  Simon 
away  from  their  boats  and  their  fishing-tackle  with 
the  words,  "Follow  me:  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men." 
That  is  a  great  parable;  significant  of  the  way  in  which,  in  all 
ages  of  the  world,  some  are  called  out  from  the  meaner  and  more 
mechanical  employments  of  life,  and  invited  to  take  a  share  in 
the  noblest  of  all  work — in  fashioning  the  intellect,  the  con- 
science, the  character,  the  destiny  of  future  generations  of  men 
and  women.  The  call  is  not  audible  to  all  of  us  in  quite  the 
same  way.  By  some  it  is  recognized  in  the  circumstances  and 
what  seem  the  accidents  of  life.  Some  hear  it  in  the  whispered 
intuitions  which  tell  of  personal  fitness  and  aptitude.  To  others 
the  voice  comes,  as  a  weighty  and  solemn  conviction  of  the  im- 
portance and  usefulness  of  the  work  itself.  But  in  some  way  or 
other  the  sense  of  the  call  ought  to  be  present  in  the  mind  of 
every  teacher.  Without  it  the  highest  achievements  of  his  art 
will  be  unattainable  to  him.  With  it,  he  will  be  in  a  position 
to  make  use  of  all  the  resources  within  his  reach;  he  will  have 
before  him  a  true  conception  both  of  the  road  he  has  to  traverse, 
and  of  the  goal  towards  which  he  moves.  And  he  will  ever 
possess  within  him  one  of  the  strongest  of  all  motives  to  action; 
for  while  he  is  doing  his  work,  he  will  habitually  recognize  and 
will  teach  his  scholars  to  recognize  the  unseen  presence  in  their 
midst  of  One  who  is  the  helper  of  all  sincere  learners,  and  the 
teacher  of  all  true  teachers. 


"THE  BEST  EXISTIKG  •  VADE  JM.ECDM'  FOB  THE  TEACHER.' 


i Hew  American  Edition  of  "FITCH'S  LECTURES  OS  TEACHIHG.' 


LECTURES   ON   TEACHING, 

Delivered  in  the  University  of  Cambridge, 
BY 

J.  G.  FITCH,  M.A., 

t 
With  Introductory  Preface  by  THOMAS  HUNTER,  Ph.D.,  President  of 

the  Normal  College,  New  York. 


lOmo,    Clotlx. 


From  the  New  England  Journal  of  Education. 
"  This  is  eminently  the  work  of  a  man  of  wisdom  and 
experience.     He  takes  a  broad  and  comprehensive  view  of 
the  work  of  the  teacher,  and  his  suggestions  on  all  topics  are 
worthy  of  the  most  careful  consideration." 


OTHER  PRESS  NOTICES. 

"The  lectures  will  be  found  most  interesting,  and  deserve* 
to  be  carefully  studied,  not  only  by  persons  directly  concerned 
with  instruction,  but  by  parents  who  wish  to  be  able  to  exer- 
cise an  intelligent  judgment  in  the  choice  of  schools  and 
teachers  for  their  children.  For  ourselves,  we  could  almost 
wish  to  be  of  school  age  again,  to  learn  history  and  geography 


from  some  one  who  could  teach  them  after  the  pattern  set  by 
Mr.  Fitch  to  his  audience.  But  perhaps  Mr.  Fitch's  obser- 
yations  on  the  general  conditions  of  school  work  are  even 
more  important  than  what  he  says  on  this  or  that  branch  of 
study." — Saturday  Review. 

"It  comprises  fifteen  lectures,  dealing  with  such  subjects 
as  organization,  discipline,  examining,  language,  fact,  knowl- 
edge, science,  and  methods  of  instruction  ;  and  though  the 
lectures  make  no  pretention  to  systematic  or  exhaustive  treat- 
ment, they  yet  leave  very  little  of  the  ground  uncovered,  and 
they  combine  in  an  admirable  way  the  exposition  of  sound 
principles  with  the  practical  suggestions  and  illustrations 
which  are  evidently  derived  from  wide  and  varied  experience, 
both  in  teaching  and  examining." — Scotsman. 

"  As  principal  of  a  training  college,  and  as  a  government 
inspector  of  schools,  Mr.  Fitch  has  got  at  his  fingers'  ends 
the  working  of  Primary  education,  while  as  assistant  commis- 
sioner to  the  late  endowed  schools  commission,  he  has  seen 
something  of  the  machinery  of  our  higher  schools.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Fitch's  book  covers  so  wide  a  field,  and  touches  on  so 
many  burning  questions,  that  we  must  be  content  to  recom- 
mend it  as  the  best  existing  vade  mecum  for  the  teacher.  He 
is  always  sensible,  always  judicious,  never  wanting  in  tact. 
, .  .  .  Mr.  Fitch  is  a  scholar ;  he  pretends  to  no  knowledge 
that  he  does  not  possess ;  he  brings  to  his  work  the  ripe  ex- 
perience of  a  well-stored  mind,  and  he  possesses  in  a  remark- 
able degree  the  art  of  exposition." — Pall  Mall  Gazette* 


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WORKS  ON   TEACHING,   Etc. 


Blakiston.     The  Teacher.     Hints  on  School  Management. 

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insight  into  the  true  nature  of  his  calling."— Monthly  Journal  of  Education. 

Combe.  Education  :  Its  Principles  and  Practice,  as  de- 
veloped by  GEORGE  COMBE,  author  of  "  The  Constitution  of  Man," 
Collated  and  Edited  by  Julius  Jolly.  8vo.  $5.00. 

Comenius.  John  Amos  Comenius.  Bishop  of  the  Moravi- 
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Craik.    The  State  and  Education.    By  HENRY  CEAIK,  M.  A. 

12mo.     $1.00. 

Fearqn.    School  Inspection.     By  D.   E.   FEARON,  M.A., 

Assistant  Commissioner  of  Endowed  Schools.     New  edition.     12mo. 
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Fitch.  Lectures  on  Teaching.  Delivered  in  the  University 
of  Cambridge.  By  J.  G.  FITCH,  M.A.,  Her  Majesty's  Inspector  of 
Schools.  12mo.  American  edition.  $1.00. 

Gladstone.     Object  Teaching.     A  Lecture  delivered  at  the 
Pupil-Teacher    Centre.       By  J.   H.   GLADSTONE,  Ph.D.,   F.R.S. 
With  an  Appendix'.     12mo.     10  cents. 
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will  do  well  to  read  it  carefully  and  thoroughly.    There  is  much  in  these  few  pages 

which  they  can  learn  and  profit  by."— School  Guardian. 

Gladstone.  Spelling  Reform,  from  an  Educational  Point 
of  View.  By  J.  H.  GLADSTONE,  F.R.S.  Second  edition.  Enlarged 
12mo.  50  cents. 

Locke  on  Education.     With  Introduction  and  Notes  by 

the  RPV.  R,  H.  QUICK,  M.  A.     90  cents. 

^.ncre  is  no  teacher  too  young  to  find  this  book  interesting ;  there  is  no  teacher  too 
old  to  find  it  profitable."— School  Bulletin. 


Locke  on  the  Conduct  of  the  Understanding.    Edited, 

with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  T.  FOWLER,  M.A.  16mo.  50  cents. 

"I  cannot  think  any  parent  or  instructor  justified  in  neglecting  to  put  this  little 
treatise  in  the  hands  or  a  boy  about  the  time  when  the  reasoning  faculties  become 
developed."— HaUam. 

Milton's  Tractate  on  Education.    A  fac-simile  reprint 

from  the  edition  of  1673.  Edited,  with  Notes,  by  OSCAR  BROWN- 
ING, M.A.  50  cents. 

"  We  are  grateful  to  Mr.  Browning  for  his  elegant  and  scholarly  edition,  to  which  is 
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— Journal  of  Education. 

Sweet.  A  Handbook  of  Phonetics,  including  a  Popular 
Exposition  of  the  Principles  of  Spelling  Reform.  By  HENRY 
SWEET,  author  of  "Anglo-Saxon  Reader,  "etc.  16mo.  $1.10. 

Three  Lectures  on  the  Practice  of  Education.  De- 
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50  cents. 

Contents  :  On  Marking,  by  H.  W.  Eve,  M.A.  ;  on  Stimulus,  by  A. 
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Essays,  too,  it  is  full  of  apophthegms."—  Journal  of  Education. 

Thring.     Theory  and  Practice  of  Teaching.     By  the  Rev. 
EDWABD  THRING,  M.A.  16mo.  Cambridge  University  Press.  $1.00. 
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book.    They  will  find  it  M  mine  in  which  they  "will  never  dig  without  some  substantial 
return,  either  in  high  inspiration  or  pound  practical  advice.  Many  of  the  hints  and  illus- 
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Still  more  helpful  will  the  book  be  found  In  the  weapons  which  it  furnishes  to  the  school- 
master wherewith  to  guard  against  his  greatest  danger— slavery  to  routine."— Nation. 

EDUCATION  AND  SCHOOL.      By  the  same  author.     Second 

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Todhunter.    The  Conflict  of  Studies,  and  other  Essays  on 

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Twining.     Technical  Training.     By  THOMAS  TWINING. 

Being  a  Suggestive  Sketch  of  a  National  System  of  Industrial  In- 
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"Every  page  attests  Mr.  Earle's  thorough  knowledge  of  English  in  all  its 
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Sweet.    An  Anglo-Saxon  Header,  in  Prose  and  Verse.    With 

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Balliol  College,  Oxford.  Third  edition.  16mo,  cloth,  $1.90. 

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FIRST    MIDDLE  ENGLISH    PRIMER.      Extracts  from    the 

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Skeat.  Specimens  of  English  Literature,  from  the  "Plough- 
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The  Nation. 

It  is  an  act  of  simple  justice  to  say  that  if  this  lexicon  is  completed  on  the 
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New  York  Times. 

^,^he^LOTld  owe?  much  t0  the  energy  and  scholarship  of  Dr.  Murray. 
Without  his  skillful  guidance  and  untiring  activity  the  great  project  of  the 
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nations  would  still  have  lacked  what  they  now  in  part  possess— a  dictionary 
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practical  advancement  which  will  in  the  future  clothe  the  apparently  dry  bones 
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New  York  Independent. 

This  dictionary  is  the  most  important  contribution  ever  yet  made  to  the 
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its  origin  scientifically  and  historically." — Athenaeum. 

"  Decidedly  the  best  existing  compendium  of  what  has  been  deter- 
mined or  conjectured  as  to  the  derivation  of  the  most  important  English 
words. " — Nation. 

"  But  we  have  probably  said  enough  to  convince  the  reader  that 
this  is  not  only  one  of  the  most  useful  but  one  of  the  most  interesting 
books  that  have  ever  been  offered  to  the  student  of  the  English  lan- 
guage."— New  York  Sun. 

"Its  merits  are  those  of  laborious  and  conscientiously  accurate 
research,  guided  by  profound  learning  and  never-failing  sagacity." — 
Professor  Henry  Sweet,  in  the  Academy. 

"Undoubtedly  the  best  etymological  dictionary  of  the  English 
language." — The  American. 


Masson's  French  Dictionary. 

ONE  DOLLAR. 

A  Compendious  Dictionary  of  the  French  Language. 
FRENCH-ENGLISH:    ENGLISH-FRENCH. 

Adapted,    from    the    Dictionaries    of   Prof.    Alfred    El  wall. 
Followed    by   a    list    of  the    Principal   Diverging 
Derivations    and    preceded    by    Chron- 
ological and  Historical  Tables. 


GUSTAVE  MASSON. 


New  Edition,  complete  in  one  volume,  12mo,  strongly  bound  in 
cloth,  $1.00. 


From  the  New  York  Independent. 

"  The  most  striking  points  in  Gustave  Masson's  Compendious . 
Dictionary  of  the  French  Language  are  likely  to  escape  the  eye  of 
all  but  careful  readers.  The  dictionary  itself  is  adapted  with  skill 
and  vigorous  condensation  from  the  several  dictionaries  of  Pro- 
fessor Alfred  Elwall,  and  is  followed  by  a  list  of  '  diverging  deriva- 
tions.' The  etymologies  in  the  French-English  part  are  done  wit> 
care,  and  to  the  whole  are  prefixed  a  number  of  tables,  chronologi- 
cal, historical  and  literary,  which  must  prove  exceedingly  useful 
It  is  to  these  tables  that  Mr.  George  Saintsbury  refers,  in  his  '  Short 
History  of  French  Literature,'  with  the  remark  that  he  had  him- 
self begun  something  on  the  same  plan;  but,  on  seeing  these,  con- 
cluded not  to  publish  his  own.  These  tables  are  above  praise, 
both  in  scope,  plan  and  execution.  Those  which  relate  to  French 
literature  are  well  classified  and  thoroughly  carried  out,  with  notice 
of  synchronous  events  and  notable  men  and  things.  There  is  an 
exhibition  of  the  principal  Chanson  de  Gesle,  of  the  French  media? 
val  dialects,  a  chronological  list  of  the  principal  French  newspapen 
published  during  the  Revolution  and  First  Empire,  from  Ze 
Mercure  de  France,  in  1772,  down  to  the  Journal  des  Debats,  1814, 
together  with  calendars  and  tables  of  French  weights  and  measures. 
The  whole  forms  a  compact  apparatus,  with  which  one  need  not 
hesitate  to  attack  the  fortress  of  French  literature  in  any  direction 
or  from  any  quarter." 


MASSON'S  FRENCH  DICTIONARY.— Continued. 

"  By  many  degrees  the  most  useful  dictionary  the  student  can 
obtain." — Educational  Times. 

"  The  etymology  of  each  important  word  is  given,  showing  its 
derivation  or  formation,  whether  from  the  Greek,  Latin,  or  other 
languages,  on  the  authority  of  Littre,  Scheler  and  Brachet,  which 
is  a  new  and  most  useful  and  interesting  feature  of  this  volume, 
and  renders  it  particularly  valuable  to  philological  students.  The 
chronological  tables  of  the  history  of  French  literature,  are  also 
instructive  and  of  much  importance.  .  .  .  We  heartily  com- 
mend it  to  all  students  and  lovers  of  the  French  language." — N. 
£.  Journal  of  Education. 

"  It  is  the  ideal  dictionary  for  the  ordinary  student,  and  will 
be  found  eminently  convenient  and  useful.  "—Boston  Post. 

"General  accuracy,  comprehensiveness,  careful  and  extended 
etymologies,  clearness  and  brevity  in  definition,  and  a  series  of 
chronological,  historical  and  literary  tables  much  beyond  the 
average  in  usefulness.  For  the  use  of  beginners  or  for  general 
reference,  we  know  of  none  more  desirable." — Boston  Traveller. 

"Trustworthy,  scholarly,  and  comprehensive." — Christian 
Union. 

"  This  is.  the  best  of  the  smaller  French  dictionaries,  and  in- 
cludes more  and  is  more  scholarly  than  some  of  the  high  priced 
ones." — Good  Literature. 

"  The  work  will  bear  high  commendation,  and  is  one  that 
scholars  will  be  glad  to  have  always  at  hand." — Churchman. 

"  One  of  the  most  convenient  as  well  as  useful  the  student 
of  the  French  language  can  obtain." — Chicago  Evening  Journal. 

"  This  handy,  and  in  the  main,  excellent  work." — Nation. 


MACMILLAN    AND     CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 


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THE  ENGLISH  POETS. 

SELECTIONS, 

With     Critical    Introductions   by    Various    Writers, 
and  a    General  Introduction   by 


EDITED  BY  THOMAS  HUMPHRY  WARD,  M.A. 

Vol.  I.—  CHAUCER   TO    DONNE. 

Vol.  II.—  BEN  JONSON    TO   DRYDEN. 

Vol.  III.—  ADDISON    TO    BLAKE. 

Vol.  IV.—  WORDSWORTH  TO  ROSSETTI. 


'  "  All  lovers  of  poetry,  all  students  of  literature,  all  readers  will  welcome  tha 

volumes  of  '  The  English  Poets' .  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  has  written  a  most 

delightful  introduction,  full  of  wise  thought  and  poetic  sensibility .  Very 

few  books  can  be  named  in  which  so  much  that  is  precious  can  be  had  in  BO  littlo 
space  and  for  so  little  money." — The  Philadelphia  Times. 

"Altogether  it  would  be  difficult  to  select  four  volumes  of  any  kind  better  worth 
owning  and  studying  than  these." — Nation. 

"Mr.  _Ward  gives  us  the  genuine  thing,  the  pure  gold,  and  not  a  bare  description 
of  how  it  looks.  These  four  volumes  ought  to  be  placed  in  every  library,  and  if 
possible,  in  the  hands  of  every  student  of  English." — Churchman. 

"This  work  is  the completest  and  best  of  the  kind  in  the  English  language."— 
Christian  at  Work. 

"  The  best  collection  ever  made.  *  *  *  A  nobler  library  of  poetry  and 
criticism  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of  English  literature." — N.  T. 
Evening  Mall. 

"For  the  young,  no  work  they  will  meet  with  can  give  them  so  good  a  view  of, 
the  large  and  rich  inheritance  that  lies  open  to  them  in  the  poetry  of  their  country.1* 
• — J.  C.  Shairp,  in  " Academy. ," 


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